Downingtown Church Converting Shipping Container into Community Center for South African Orphans

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Members of Hopewell United Methodist Church in Downingtown are remodeling a shipping container into a community center for orphans in South Africa. --photo of Rev. Vicky Pry via David Swanson / Philly.com

Once finished, the shipping container currently sitting on the lawn of a Chester County church will become the final piece of an orphan community center in a town in South Africa, writes Michaelle Bond for Philly.com.

“It’ll be wonderful to see kids using this,” commented Cammy Brantzeg, a member of the Hopewell United Methodist Church who, together with her husband Tony, is leading the makeover. Both Cammy and Tony were trained as actuaries and have no professional experience in construction.

Together with other members of the church, they will spend the next two weeks converting and partitioning the once bland container with a kitchen and a room that can be used for tutoring, after-school activities and medical care.

Over the last several years, more than 100 members of the church have traveled to South Africa to help build houses and retrofit containers in collaboration with the South Africa’s nonprofit, Mosaic.

Mosaic provides housing, education and jobs to help create self-sustaining communities for families caring for orphans.

This container is the first one church members have converted at their Downingtown site. This way, all the members of the church can be involved, including those who cannot make the trip to other countries.

The work is being helped by Colorado non-profit, Homes of Living Hope, which has assisted groups in many states including Pennsylvania, connect with aid agencies and renovate containers for use in several African countries and Mexico City.

Read more about the work at Philly.com here.

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