The Knit-a-square program has inspired volunteers in more than 60 countries to knit and crochet more than 1.5 million blanket squares, hats, hand-warmers and toys. Your efforts are helping to keep the children warm but to keep this operation running every day, we need to extend your love and support.
Your donations are the backbone of financial support for the operations on the ground in South Africa, making it possible for them to continue.
Whether it's helping to pay the rent, a stipend for the gogos to sew blankets, fuel for the KasVan or to cover postal charges of $3.75 US per parcel, you make it possible to keep striving toward warming and comforting the children.
Our goal is to remove the monthly deficit that Ronda and her team have to deal with.
You can:
1. Make a donation whenever you are able.
2. Sign up for an ongoing monthly donation (subscription).
3. Shop at the KasShop!
Please follow this discussion for monthly updates, current financial reports and ideas on what we can all do to help.
Replies
Finances up to the end of May. News from Ronda:
"Expenses seemed very high in May, with less income. Not a pretty Trial Balance, but the bank balance is around R140,000 at the moment so we feel quite comfortable.
Bank charges seem very high … we are battling with ATMs at the moment, so many of them jimmied for the purposes of stealing one’s card details. So we travel a bit further to go to the actual branch office where our accounts are held – those ATMs are checked twice daily and guarded during the day – the mall is locked at night. The banks lose MILLIONS from this type of fraud, so perhaps they are trying to mitigate those losses by raising their fees – I will check on that.
It is absolutely FREEZING cold on the Highveld – the air is thin so when the temperature goes down to 1 degree at night, with the chill factor that drops to minus 3 or 4. If the air were more moist we would have FEET of snow, but it’s very dry in winter. I cannot sleep for thinking about cold people sleeping on pavements and under bushes – and little ones sleeping on packed mud floors.
We are inundated with requests for blankets at the moment – our lists are growing ! So let’s pray that our gogo groups will come back with all their blankets - soon."
Hi folks, I've just visited the KAS Shop and see that popping one 'cover the postage fee' into your cart is $5. I purchased a few to try + help the coffers. I'll have to contact Auntie Nellie to help promote the other items as this cash flow situation is a bit of a worry.
I see the postal fees have doubled. Does it cost more for KAS to pick up each parcel now? if so, how much is it, please?
Hi Arlene,
The postal fees vary from month to month, and it depends on many factors. They include the volume of packages collected, the number of collections and the mood of the post office at the time of collection.
It just so happens that on that month the fees were higher, but it's not across every month consistently.
thank you for the information. is the $3.75 US, charged by the South African Customs & Excise per package still the same or does that vary?
Welcome to the KAS Finances discussion for 2025. Our Cash Flow chart is below.
Please note the increase in fees for March is due to a doubling of postal fees and a quintupling of fees paid to the Gogos. No data was available for February.