my collected hearts
Collect heart points and exchange them for gifts in the program Heart for a Heart. To view your heart collection, enter the email address you registered while making purchases for Kasisi.
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Collect heart points and exchange them for gifts in the program Heart for a Heart. To view your heart collection, enter the email address you registered while making purchases for Kasisi.
Years ago, Sister Mariola and I drove all the way around Zambia. Sister Mariola as a skilled driver and indispensable guide, me as photographer and storyteller. At the time, we were starting up the foundation and preparing a project for schools aimed at introducing Zambia to schoolchildren in Poland. We visited the villages where our pupils came from, their schools and many other interesting places. Among other things, we visited a coffee plantation. From Munali, in addition to photos and memories, we also brought back small coffee plants.
And off it went. We got carried away with creativity. The competitive gene was activated. An intercontinental coffee-growing competition was launched. I no longer remember what I lost at the time. To save the remnants of my horticultural reputation, I blamed the failure on the climate. Poland is not Africa. When it’s winter, it’s cold. It has to be. If we had announced round two, I would have pushed for the planting of spruce trees in Kasisi as a sweet revenge.
Let’s get back to the coffee. My little panicle was maybe 15 cm long with three leaves when Sister Mariola was harvesting the first crop from a flourishing bush. Today, all the residents of the House of Mercy have something to do with the harvest. The coffee plants are overflowing with fruit. The girls help to pick the seeds out of them. It’s like with cherries, only the other way around. When it comes to coffee, the seeds are more important than the rest. The thin shell hides the whole thing.
Two thoughts spring to mind from these reminiscences. The first. Sister! It is imperative to return to the intercontinental challenge. As long as the fight is more evenly matched this time. The second. There is something about Kasisi that only virtuoso gardeners have. It’s not just the soil and the climate. It’s the nurturing, the tenderness and just that hard-to-describe something that makes not only the plants want to grow and flourish there happily.
This home is made up primarily of the wonderful sisters, but the fact that over 200 kids can flourish there is also thanks to you. We don’t want to ask you to give up your coffee today and support Kasisi instead. Coffee is important and can go hand in hand with helping.
Shopping at the Kasisi Pantry goes very well with coffee! Let’s meet for coffee at the Pantry today!
Mateusz Gasiński
A school kit includes notebooks, allowing children to study at home. It also includes a pair of shoes, which, if not for Kasisi, they would have to borrow from their siblings. And finally, a delicious, healthy sandwich in the backpack, which gives them the energy they need for their studies. Just like the sandwich their mother would prepare. You can pack one into their backpack today—from right here, from your own home.
