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Patient Sibanda Chronicle Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has this year set a target of $50,000 for the Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund to spread festive joy to underprivileged residents. The Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund is an annual event to raise funds that are used to ensure vulnerable groups like the elderly, poor and orphans get a memorable Christmas.
Council’s senior public relations officer Nesisa Mpofu yesterday told The Chronicle that the council last year set a target of $100,000 towards the Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund. Mpofu said the fund was this year launched on November 20.
“The donations from the Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund are distributed to various charities such as children’s homes and old people’s homes. “We also donate to disadvantaged members of the public through our social welfare offices,” said Mpofu.
She said their main targets are disadvantaged people in the community who include the elderly, child-headed families and persons with disability. Mpofu said at the local authority would soon set a date, before Christmas, for the distribution of donations.
Since 2012, the council’s target for the Mayor’s cheer fund has been decreasing. In 2012 the council had targeted $150,000. In 2013 the council sets its sights lower at $100,000 but only managed to raise $34,000, about a third of the target. Mpofu said the money was not enough to cater for all charities the council had targeted.
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