The mother of 14-year-old La grah Trout from Atlantis was surprised by her son’s philanthropic gesture to decline a confirmation party and instead celebrated his confirmation by giving out food to the homeless in Cape Town.
Confirmation is a rite of passage and a sacrament for the New Apostolic Church youth, where they pledge their devotion to their God.
Chandré Trout said that she was surprised when her son La grah told her last year that he wanted to give back to homeless people for his confirmation.
“Because he is my first-born son, I wanted to give him a memorable confirmation celebration, but he came to my husband and me and told us that he did not want the usual confirmation celebration. I was shocked.
“He told me that he wants to share his confirmation with the homeless, as most people who come to confirmation parties have food at home; and there are people out there who do not even have a house or anything to eat, so he wanted to share it with them,” Chandré said.
On Sunday, February 6, the day of the confirmation celebration, the Trout family handed out 100 parcels of food and 100 parcels of cake to homeless people, starting at the Table View police station and along Parklands and Melkbos beachfront.
“His father and I had to force him to take the pictures. The pictures that we took do not even show everyone that we gave food to on the day because he said he did not want publicity for doing this as he said it would feel like he was not doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
Chandré says that handing out the food made her so emotional and described the process as enlightening as she realised that “some people out there do not even know where they will find their next meal”, she added.
“What had me emotional on the day was when this one guy we gave a box of cake to started jumping for joy after he saw the cake. That brought tears to my eyes, and it made me wonder when last he had a piece of cake or some food,” she said.
Chandré says that she suspects La grah chose to celebrate his confirmation because he recently lost a homeless friend to the cold streets.
“He always participated in school, and he would take the leftover food from the sports events to give to this homeless guy. I did not know he got attached to this homeless guy until I went through his school books and found an essay about how sad he was about the man passing away from the cold. He took that man as a friend of his, and now he is no longer there,” she added.
Chandré says that she feels extremely blessed to have birthed this noble young man and says their community has been singing praises for his generosity.
IOL