The perfect wedding gift

Calissa and Nathan were fortunate enough to be able to meet their sponsored child in Kenya before their wedding.

“Upon visiting the community we saw the great work that ChildFund was doing and were impressed to find the community leading the way with development plans to improve their standard of living. One of their priorities was to complete the building of a well so they could become more self sustaining and less reliant on donations” commented Nathan.

Upon returning to Australia the couple had a burning desire to help the community achieve their goal of providing access to clean water for everyone in the community.

Nathan and Calissa decided their wedding provided the perfect opportunity to ask for donations to support this project.

On their invitations they gave guests the option to make a donation and told them about the people they had met in Kenya. Calissa recalls “our friends and family reacted with surprise at first but then with pride as they knew they were also a part of providing a community with an essential resource to help themselves.”

She continued, “this seemed to be quite a nice way of letting people become involved in our wedding celebrations and also involved in our way of life. We did give our guests the options of giving gifts but the vast majority donated to the water project.”

The now happily married couple can be proud of what they have achieved for their sponsored child’s community. By sacrificing gifts, that weren’t essential, Calissa and Nathan have provided a community of over 500 people with access to one of life’s essentials, water.