A Perth grandmother’s sale of homemade tablet made enough cash to build a house for a destitute family living in Kenya.
Margaret Bayne put her formidable baking sales to the test after hearing the heartbreaking tale of a woman and her four children who were forced to squat on a Kenyan beach for five years.
The retired social worker was inspired by a friend who had been raising funds for a school in the nearby Kikambala, a coastal community in Kilifi County.
Mrs Bayne, a member of Perth’s North Church, set to work in her kitchen and made nearly 500 trays of tablet.
The grandmother-of-five sold the treats to friends, acquaintances and members of the public in Perth and Dunfermline throughout 2014 and 2015 and managed to raise an astonishing £5,469.
It was enough to put a roof over the heads of Kenyan mum Elizabeth Charo and her children Philip, 14, Kezia, 12, Daniel, 10, and seven-year-old Caroline.
Mrs Bayne, who battled through health problems to continue her fundraising, said she was “gobsmacked” that she was able to raise enough for a house.
“I have a great faith and I just knew that if God was calling me to help Elizabeth and her children in this way, I could do what I wanted to do,” she said. “Going to Kenya was an amazing experience and I truly felt I was walking with God.”
Margaret is not the first to harness the fundraising power of tablet. Monfieth woman Fiona Edwards has raised tens of thousands of pounds for cancer research at Ninewells Hospital by making and selling the sweet treat.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Courier.