Carli Travers and Robert Birungi live a relatively simple life in Port Coquitlam with their five young sons.
But the couple also has a much larger family some 14,000 kilometres away, on a campus they started more than a decade ago to help hundreds of orphans, at-risk children and their caregivers build a better life.
Abetavu is the 11-acre safe haven they created in Birungi’s homeland of Uganda, a place that provides schooling for children and adults as well as a number of outreach programs such as support groups, religious education, farm training and an emergency shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
Recently, the charity updated the field for its Hidden Talent soccer players — at a cost of $10,000 — and introduced a new daycare for kids with special needs.
The cost to run Abetavu is $60,000 a year, money it primarily raises in Canada, where the family now resides full-time because of threats made against them from community leaders and others in the African country.
Next month, the husband-and-wife team will host its fourth annual dessert night at Riverside community church in PoCo's Dominion Triangle. They hope to collect at least $10,000 from the event to continue their work at Abetavu.
The event, to be held Nov. 10, will include catered desserts, a silent auction and traditional African drum music from 6 to 8 p.m.
Travers, a BC Christian Academy graduate, said the couple’s push now is to lift the families in the surrounding community out of poverty so they can become independent.
Many children are being raised by single mothers or their grandmothers and “the last thing we want to be is a crutch,” Travers said. “We can provide them seeds and they can sustain themselves with their own gardens, for example.”
Birungi said the harvest can also be shared with their neighbours.
“We want them to equip themselves,” Travers said, adding, “We want people to know that we live in Port Coquitlam and we’re trying to make a difference for people on the other side of the world.”
Birungi, who returns to Uganda four days after the Nov. 10 gathering for a three-month stint, said the event is also a way to meet and give thanks to the donors “who have been there for us since Day 1. We are very grateful.”
The family plans to make a trip back to Abetavu next summer.
To attend the Abetavu dessert night, visit buytickets.at/abetavucommunity for $35 each or $100 for a family of five. Email traverscarli@gmail.com for more information.
