Peninah Kitsao, a widow who 'cooked' stones to bait her children to sleep broke down after well-wishers offered her overwhelming support.
The Kenya Red Cross, the County Government of Mombasa and other well-wishers on Thursday, April 30, paid her a visit with a number of donations.
Due to her story that went viral, a number of families at Mleji village in Kisauni will benefit from Mombasa County Household Relief programme with around 6,000 households in the area set to receive help.
"I pray to God to bless them abundantly. I thank all the organisations that have been touched by the story of my family, God bless them all.
"My worry was my children suffering because of lack of food but I've seen the country support me. I really thank God, I lack words, all this is possible because of God," said the widow as she broke down.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Kitsao expressed her joy on receiving the donations, "There are so many people who have turned out to help, I have not counted the exact number, they have brought a variety of foodstuff. I have asked the neighbours to also be cooked for so that we celebrate together today."
She revealed that she is yet to count the money donated to her and noted that plans are underway to send her kids to school.
"I have not checked the exact amount, since morning I have received donations but I have not had time to sit down and count. Well-wishers are now drafting plans to get my kids to school but so far they have not been enrolled yet."
Kitsao opened up on how she ended up 'cooking' stones, "I did that for my two-year-old son, to trick him to sleep, he kept on asking for food because he was hungry. I kept on reassuring him to wait as food was 'cooking'.
"I thank God because he slept, the following day my neighbour came and saw it and called the government to offer me help,' recalled the widow.
Mombasa County Red Cross Chairman, Mahmoud Noor revealed that thousands of households are set to benefit from the relief.
"We've had our teams coming here three weeks back. They have mapped the vulnerable communities here, in fact, in the first and the second phase we will have 6,000 households.
"By next week we will cover the 3,000 households in Junda and the next phase we will cover another 3,000 households and in our program. We really are targeting the vulnerable. For the lady who has attracted a lot of attention, our teams had already assessed her," noted the chairman.
Peninah's neighbour Prisca Momanyi thanked everyone who supported her after she shared her story with the media, "I'm the one who alerted the media about her story after seeing the struggles that she went through.
"I thank everyone who have helped her, all media platforms, the Mombasa County and Red Cross in general because they have stepped in to help her.
"We opened for a bank account and we set up M-pesa for her but because she's not tech-savvy we put security measures like a fingerprint scanner.
"Because I'm close to her every time, I will ensure we put for her a till number because she doesn't know how to operate M-pesa so that I help her every time," said Momanyi.
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