Please support Gurt Lush Feed the Kids! Gurt Lush Choir are fundraising for a community in Uganda whose children are going hungry and have lost their education because of COVID-19. Not only has the pandemic closed the schools where they were once nourished with a daily mug of porridge, we can no longer support them with fundraising concerts.

We are asking choir members and anyone who has ever enjoyed our singing to help us reopen their schools and give them back their breakfast.

How we got involved: In 2017, Gurt Lush Choir (and Bristol Man Chorus) held our first concert to raise funds for Educate for Grace, set up by choir member Judy Atkinson to establish schools and facilities for children living in extreme poverty in Uganda.

That fundraiser helped build a school in Masindi and pay for a teacher. Our second gig launched the GURT LUSH BREAKFAST PROGRAMME 1 at another school, Mwisi Primary, Kabale, where children were too weak and hungry to learn. It had a huge impact – every term, £450 was feeding 300 children a mug of porridge every day. Below - children at Mwisi school

Further concerts and events in 2018 and 2019 raised over £7,400 to build and equip the Virunga Masif community school 200 miles away, for children of the Batwa community who had become marginalised and destitute after being evicted from their forest homelands when the government set up Mahinga Gorilla National park. The project also helped the community build a water tank and grow potatoes so they don’t always have to beg. The school opened in February 2020 with GURT LUSH FEEDING PROGRAMME 2. (See top picture with the children in the breakfast hut with their first mug of porridge).

But the pandemic has hit the schools and communities hard. Thanks to monthly donations from choir members, funds for soap and food have been sent to the Batwa families suffering during lockdown. But we have not been able to sing together and raise funds since 2019. These children and their families urgently need our support. Choir members are doing a Sponsored Exercise Fundraiser to help the schools and the children. Please help us to support these children and give them food, a community school and a future.

WHAT YOUR FUNDS WILL BUY (100% of all money collected will go to help maintain the Breakfast Programmes and feed the children)

£3 Buys 1 pair of croc shoes to prevent jiggers (we need 55 pairs)

£5 Feeds 55 children at Virunga Masif school their daily mug of porridge

£12 Feeds 300 children at Mwisi school for a day

£20 Pays for the nightwatchman at Virunga for 1 month

£25 Firewood for a month to cook the daily meal

£30 One month’s salary for the cook for Virunga school

£40 Teacher salary for a month