Another ECD managed by Pebbles in the winelands, this time in the Upper Hemel en Aarde valley

Carolyn Martin, co-owner of the Creation wine estate in the Hemel en Aarde valley near Hermanus, established that most of the wine and fruit farm labourers‟ pre-school children did not have an educational facility closer than 20 kilometres from their homes, and with no transport available, many children stayed at home during the day. Carolyn started prompting her neighbours to assist, with with the very generous offering of buildings from Anthony van Hoogstraten on at his farm Bergplaas, a venue was realised.

The ECD and After School Care Centre was opened in 2017 with seed funding from the Cape Wine Auction Trust and most recently been expanded and also had a vehicle added to the project - making it easy for the children to be transported to and from the school.

Ian Wallace from Rotary Hermanus was a great supporter of the project and raised both local and international funding from Rotary Global - making a total of US $ 65 380, which facilitated renovating the old farm building into a larger ECD Centre, with the help of architect Andrew Finlayson.  This centre opened in April 2019.
The next step of course was staffing and managing the school and this is where the experienced Pebbles team stepped in, as they have established over 50 ECD centres, serving 1700 children, from Citrusdal at the foot of the Cederberg mountains in the West, all the way out now to the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley.

Peter Hodgskin, is an old friend of Anthony van Hoogstraten and has been living on Bergplaas for some years now, clearing alien vegetation. He jumped in to help renovate the various buildings originally

This is truly a community project - well done to Pebbles, Carolyn, Ian, Peter, Anthony, Andrew and the community who have contributed to this project - making a huge difference in these young children's lives.
#wineforgood