Picnic appeal

This summer we’re sharing our sense of family, fun, community and love a little bit wider, with Mothers’ Union Picnic Appeal for our Family Life Programme.

Have a picnic, get out into the fresh air and sunshine, enjoy fun and laughter with your family, friends or church... and spread all that happiness a bit further by holding your picnic in aid of Mothers’ Union Family Life in central Africa!

Mothers’ Union runs a Family Life Programme in many villages and rural communities in Uganda. Families and communities get together and find ways to overcome things that hold back their family life. Sometimes it’s that they’re struggling to provide a balanced diet for their families, or that they’re worried about caring for the older generation, or they’re trying to get a balance between discipline and encouraging their children, we are seeing community after community empowered to sort out these issues for themselves.

Some villages decide that the biggest problem to address is that they only grow a few varieties of vegetables locally, so their diet is limited, children are not growing up strong and healthy, and the vegetables that they do grow have taken some of the nutrients out of the soil. So with the Family Life Programme, they set about sorting out the soil’s depletion, and planting alternative crops that will improve their family’s nutrition. The change is amazing – and you can help. Here’s how:

Have a fundraising picnic, with your family, church, mums and toddlers’ group, youth group, a lunch club, a Sunday school, or friends – and you’ll be part of something amazing.

There are all sorts of picnics that you could hold, from a teddy-bears picnic to candle-lit al fresco dinner - and as many kinds of budget to do it on. Just think through who you’re aiming it at and what they’d enjoy. From a youth group picnic with a football, some rugs, and an iPod, to an outdoor concert or evening wine-tasting in the garden, there’s no end of ideas you can adapt to your group – just put your thinking cap on!

Make sure everyone knows it’s a fundraising picnic by selling tickets in advance.  Tickets can range from £2 for a school picnic to £50 for four courses and an open-air recital. Just fit your event to your audience. And don’t forget to have a contingency plan if it rains!

All around the world, families love each other, try to look after each other, gather round to eat together; we bicker and laugh and play together. Let’s extend our sense of family and gather everyone in. This summer, share your summer fun with the rest of our global family.

Picnic pickings!

Here are some ideas to get you thinking...

• Have a beach picnic if you live by the sea, with beach volleyball or a sandcastle-building competition

• A ‘cheese and wine’ picnic for the grown-ups

• For small children, teddy bears, dolls and cuddley toys, or tea-party picnics are fun

• How about celebrating some of the different nationalities in your group, school or church, and having a national dishes picnic, for people to bring and share some food from their own culture?

• You could have a treasure hunt with your picnic, in your local park or the church area

• A jamboree picnic, with bunting and a band

• A strawberry tea picnic

• How about a period Jane Austen picnic?!

• Or breakfast picnic, if your church holds prayer breakfasts – have your next one outside and uphold Uganda in prayer as well as practical support!