Borradaile Trust Appeal

Dear family, friends, acquaintances and sympathetic readers,

Introduction

  1. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Tony Lee and am the warden, or general manager of the Borradaile trust Home for the aged, situated in Marondera, 70kms. East of Harare in Zimbabwe. BT is registered with the Ministry of Social Welfare as a Welfare Organisation Institution – W/O 236/68, and thus attracts a tax deduction for donations made to it.

It was built by the Reverend and Mrs. Borradaile Bell some 51 years ago, and is non-sectarian, non-racial and non-denominational, albeit having been founded upon Anglican tradition.

Pen-Picture

  1. The Trust has a Management Committee of volunteers, whose chairman is Mr. Michael Hammond, a retired rector of Peterhouse School for Girls in Marondera.

For those of you who are familiar with  “BT” in addition to 73 cottages for couples and singles who as lessees of their cottages (A-Scheme) fend for themselves, we have some 60 elderly who live in bed-sit apartments, and dine-in, in our full-catering dining rooms (B-Scheme), and upwards of 33 who live in our nursing home frail-care centre, which is fully staffed with professional nursing staff and nurse aides (C-Scheme). In addition, a separately-managed private cottage hospital, Borradaile Hospital, is situated in our grounds, and is complementary to our Home’s facilities. We employ a total of 66 persons in administration, nursing, grounds and maintenance, housekeeping and security.

Our Immediate Problem

  1. I believe it is well-known now, how Zimbabwe’s inflation and the diminishing availability of essential commodities have affected our people ! In real terms, inflation has reached 500%. Because of the increasing problem of virtual non-availability of necessary food ingredients, and the hyper-inflation spiral, which in November brought the food-alone inflation to 560%, we brought in a professional catering company which has the ability to procure the necessary food items; this has been a most successful move. Our problem, however, lies in the fact that our pensioner-residents’ incomes have been eroded to virtually below the cost of housing and feeding them. Our policy has been to try and keep our tariffs within the residents’ means, but we have now reached the situation where our expenditure is more than our income, and to increase our charges would be to put them beyond the ability of most dining-in residents to pay !

Exchange Rate

  1. We have been blessed these past few years by well-wishers who’ve supported us so faithfully through our U.K. bank account, and we’ve been able to import funds from there at favourable rates. However, we’re now seeing our withdrawals from this account exceeding our monthly revenue. We urgently need to arrest this trend, and see an injection into the fund. Hence the appeal.

Cost of Maintaining a Resident

  1. It costs us twenty pounds sterling per month to fully maintain one B/C-scheme resident (68 pence per day)

  1. It costs us 45 pence per day to feed one B/C-scheme resident (15 pence per meal, on average)

My Request To You

7. May I ask you to please consider making a donation to our cause, to help us to look after our elderly, our senior citizens, who’ve spent   the best part of their lives contributing to the building and developing of this wonderful land of ours, which in turn is currently not contributing too well to the looking after of these dear and precious people !. The times of adversity are not of their making, and many are bewildered by the plight they find themselves in.

  1. Our support base in this former community of commercial farmers has been totally eroded, and many of our elderly are now on  their own, their families having to seek lives elsewhere.

Our Bank Details

  1. Our U.K. bank is Child and Company, Bankers,  incorporated with the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Our Bank Account Details Are

Account Name: The Borradaile Trust

Address: Child and Co, Bankers

               1 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y  1BD

Account Details: Branch Sort Code: 15-80-00

Account No:                                     63901566

Personality Details 

a) President:        Mrs. Jenny Mitchell             jenmitchell@mango.zw

b) Chairman        Michael Hammond               petrean@mweb.co.zw

c) Treasurer         Colin West, CA (Zim)          cwest@samara.co.zw

d) Secretary         Mrs. Pru Brooker                  arhb@zol.co.zw

11. Our postal address: P.Bag 3795, Marondera, Zimbabwe.

      Email address        :               borradailetrust@earth.co.zw

      Phones                    : 00-263-79-23558

      Fax                          : 00-263-79-21405

New webpage, being developed: http://www.mweb.co.zw/borradailetrust

Conclusion            

12. In thanking you in anticipation, and most sincerely, may I give thanks to those of you who may have contributed previously, or are still doing so, and may I encourage you by saying that your giving is very much appreciated, and may God richly bless you for your kindness and selflessness. Please pass this message on, with the knowledge that your help, whatever the amount, will greatly and collectively benefit our “Oldies” in a wonderful way.

Sincerely, and with gratitude, on behalf of our elderly residents,

Rev.E.A. (Tony) Lee,

Warden