Maybe instead of that bottle of wine ...?

The locally founded Maintain Hope charity is renewing an appeal for people to give the value of just one bottle of wine a month, to help provide meat for children at the Shelter Home near Nairobi, writes Brian Byrne.

Gerry O'Donoghue says that adding beef or goat meat to the diet of 25 children at the Home would cost €72 a month, or the equivalent of seven or eight people donating the value of a bottle of wine.

At the moment, providing the rest of the essential foods — maize, beans, rice, sugar, ugali flour, cooking oil, milk powder and Blue Band margarine — comes to a total of 24,260 Kenyan Shillings, about €215.

The money can be contributed by the organisation's Tenner a Month scheme, details at maintainhope.org.

"Already, those who are contributing are helping to keep these children healthy, keep them in a dry bed, and send them to school with a full belly," he says. "They are beyond grateful."