St. Luke’s Contributes to New Farm at Zimbabwean School

St. Luke’s and the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac raised funds to purchase a small dairy herd for Daramombe Mission Farm in Zimbabwe.

A new farm irrigation system and a dairy cow are the latest links in a close relationship between St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sister Bay and fellow Anglicans in Zimbabwe. Since Masvingo church officials visited Sister Bay in 2019, the St. Luke’s Outreach Committee has corresponded with them and looked for ways to offer support.

The first project, completed in 2021, was a community well in Beitbridge, just north of the South African border. The well now supplies fresh water to a community that previously had no water access.

More recently, St. Luke’s – as the beneficiary of a generous bequest from a late parishioner – decided to tithe 10% of the bequest, or about $83,000, and charged the Outreach Committee with identifying worthy recipients. 

After contacting Masvingo officials, St. Luke’s learned that the diocesan mission school at Christ the King-Daramombe is developing a 1,500-acre farm at the school, where students can work and produce food for the school and the wider community.

The Outreach Committee designated $15,000 from the tithe to help defray the cost of an irrigation system, which is currently being installed. St. Luke’s also donated $2,000 to a larger fundraiser organized by the Diocese of Fond du Lac to purchase cows for the farm.