Current Miss SA Marilyn Ramos spent an inspiring morning at the Sunshine Centre in Craighall Park, an organisation dedicated to early childhood development of children with disabilities, to show her support for Casual Day. She met the children, inspected the school and spent a few hours exchanging Casual Day stickers and dispensing hugs.
Marilyn is passionate about children, and has spent much of her reign so far advocating and caring for vulnerable children. By supporting Sunshine Centre’s Casual Day campaign, she is helping to raise awareness of the needs of children with disabilities.
Sunshine Centre is a top performer in the country’s most successful fundraising campaign, which last year raised a staggering R22.2 million for organisations around the country.
Marilyn donned her Casual Day golf shirt and cap, and found a special place near her heart for her Casual Day sticker. Through her work with various children’s organisations, Marilyn has become aware of the importance of children’s development, especially in the first 1 000 days of their lives.
Gerda Brown, GM of the Sunshine Association, said the aim of Sunshine’s programmes are to promote the inclusion of children with disabilities in regular programmes and community life. “Our Start Programme is an indigenous training programme developed by the Sunshine Association. We also cater for able-bodied preschool children as part of the Inclusion Programme. We have a shortfall in our funding from government and the funds we raise through Casual Day really help to close that gap.”
Said Marilyn, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help you kickstart your Casual Day campaign. Go big and wear your sticker.” She will be tweeting her encouragement during the month before Casual Day.
Said project leader Celeste Vinassa, “By adding her support to the Sunshine Centre’s Casual Day campaign and Casual Day in general, Marilyn is inspiring others to participate in Casual Day.”
This year Casual Day is on Friday 6 September. The theme is Go Big! So whether you wear big hair, big glasses, a big tie, big shoes, or just go big on the number of stickers you wear, anything goes, as long as it’s big!
Casual Day is the flagship project of the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities (NCPPDSA), and has been run in partnership with its national beneficiaries, SA National Council for the Blind, Disabled People South (DPSA), SA Federation for Mental Health, Deaf Federation of SA (DeafSA) and Epilepsy SA, for the past 18 years.
Eight new organisations have recently joined its beneficiary family: Autism South Africa (ASA), Down Syndrome South Africa, The National Association for Persons with Cerebral Palsy (NAPCP), the South African National Deaf Association (SANDA), the National Institute for the Deaf (NID), QuadPara Association of South Africa (QASA), Alzheimer’s South Africa and the South African Disability Alliance (SADA).
“Funds are raised R10 at a time through sticker donations, so we want to encourage all South Africans to support their local Casual Day beneficiary organisations like Sunshine Centre. I can’t stress how important it is for all businesses, schools and church groups to get involved with helping organisations like Sunshine Centre reach their financial targets. In tough financial times, Casual Day is a lifeline to many organisations rendering services to persons with disabilities,” concludes Vinassa.
Casual Day is on Friday 6 September 2013. Leading retail group Edcon, is Casual Day’s principal financial sponsor. Stickers are available at all Edcon stores, which include the following brands: Edgars, Jet, JetMart, Boardmans, CNA, Red Square and LEGIT. Stickers will also be available at Absa, Game and DionWired stores, Checkers, Checkers Hyper or any of the participating beneficiary organisations (for full list see www.casualday.co.za).
To order marketing material for your Casual Day campaign, to find out what others are doing to prepare to Go Big, and link to Casual Day’s social networks, visit www.casualday.co.za
• To find out how you can participate in the Sunshine Association’s Casual Day campaign, call Shannon on 011 268 0710.
More Info link:: http://www.casualday.co.za
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Facebook: https://facebook.com/CasualDaySA
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Author: Andrea Vinassa from TorchMedia. Originally distributed by MyPR.co.za.
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Marilyn Ramos supports Casual Day. She will be going BIG on 6 September!
