“It was always a dream for me to plant a sustainable vegetable garden so that we will be able to feed children in need on a daily basis. Therefore, I am so thankful that this dream has become a reality and that I can leave a legacy for them,” says the 83-year-old Sr Marie-Therese McLoughlin from Kroonstad.
To create a sustainability fund and school feeding scheme for the Notre Dame St Peter’s School (NDSPS), McLoughlin raised money for the vegetable garden by skydiving in Parys on 12 May.
“It was an awesome and fantastic experience. I really do not have any regrets and would surely do it again, although my friends, family, and colleagues do not agree.”
McLoughlin raised R200 000 for the vegetable garden at the school, and with help from the Kroonstad Rotary Club it is now fully established.
The garden has been dubbed the Goodness Garden and named after McLoughlin.
Currently, spinach and beetroot are being grown, with plans of planting pumpkins soon.
Ten fruit trees that had been donated were also planted around the newly established vegetable garden.
Carol-Ann Gouvea says that Kroonstad Rotary would like to sincerely thank all donors, especially Kevin and Priscilla Fourie, Bianca Keeve, Cobus Taljaard, Wilma Zandberg, the group that started preparing the land for the vegetable garden in July and also Danie Gouvea who organised the setting up of a sprinkler system.
It was also Kroonstad Rotary members who helped to plant the garden.
The help of every person who was involved in making the project become a reality is acknowledged with much appreciation from McLoughlin.
“Without the support and love and goodness of so many – Kroonstad Rotary Club, all NDSPS colleagues, staff, family, friends, all the sponsors and the public who made a contribution, the Goodness Garden would never have happened,” she says.
McLoughlin has been associated with the school since 1952, when she first came to Kroonstad from Port Elizabeth.
More recently she has returned to the NDSPS, where she serves as chaplain and counsellor.
After completing school, McLoughlin had studied to become a teacher of music, then a primary school teacher.
Later she studied at the University of Cape Town (UCT) to become both a high school teacher and a psychiatric social worker.
