Team Cinnamon Lakeside restores St. Anne’s Church Paradise

Volunteers from Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo embarked on their second cultural restoration project recently. Having explored many options, the organizing committee for the project discovered St. Anne’s Church Paradise in Kuruwita in the Ratnapura District. The church sits on an acre wide property and receives little assistance from outside its immediate community.

The Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo team comprised General Manager Denis Gruhier and his family along with over eighty associates across various departments of the hotel. For the volunteers, the journey began at dawn when they departed the hotel. Working through the day, the team managed to conduct a complete clean up of the church and its one acre compound.

A brand new front door was installed, new gutters were fixed and the washroom was fitted with new fixtures. The paint crew painted the entire church, both inside and out including the boundary walls and church gate. In addition the hotel was happy to gift to the church a signboard for the entrance, a podium and 25 chairs.

The hotel associates were on the receiving end of warm hospitality on this day, with members of the church offering them tea and snacks in the morning as well as the evening, and were grateful for the refreshing snacks. Father Ranjan Moriass of St. Anne’s Church Paradise along with the church members expressed their gratitude to Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo for their gracious gesture.

Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo launched this series of activities with a restoration project at the Abhayagiriya temple last year. Through such projects, the hotel continues to live the John Keells Leisure pledge – “I Will Care.” This pledge is one of five that the John Keells Leisure sector subscribes to which include “I will get it right the first time all the time, I will be green, I will empower” and “I will stand out wherever I am”.