Food For The Poor Accelerates Relief to the Bahamas
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Sept. 9, 2019) HeadKnowles Foundation and the Archdiocese of Nassau have come on board with Food For The Poor to aid the people of the Bahamas after it was devastated last week by Category 5 Hurricane Dorian.
More than 70,000 people have been affected and the death toll is now at 45 and is expected to climb. Food For The Poor is working with trusted partners to make sure the aid gets to those who need it most.
The first disaster pallets were sent by air freight last week and were received by HeadKnowles, a relief organization in the Bahamas, for distribution. Two 40-foot containers will be loaded as soon as possible for the Archdiocese of Nassau, which has four distribution points in its parish and has assembled a corps of more than 80 volunteers.
Relief items will include generators, two-burner stoves, blankets and tarps, rice casserole meals, bags of rice and a general assortment of food, juices, chainsaws, diapers and 5-gallon buckets.
“It’s important to know exactly what the people in the Bahamas are saying they need,” said Food For The Poor Executive Vice President Ed Raine. “It is not like here, where we have insurance. We serve people who don’t have a safety net, the poorest of the poor. They need food, survival kits, and then of course, they are going to need long-term help.”
This is not the first time the relief and development organization Food For The Poor has helped the Bahamas after a hurricane, but it is the largest scale disaster the islands have experienced.
The eight disaster pallets shipped by Food For The Poor last week contained 432 hygiene kits, 360 disaster blankets, more than 1,500 instant oatmeal packs and 120 two-burner stoves.
“We are hearing that 70,000 have been displaced. We know there is a mass dislocation, a very unstable situation,” Raine said. “We are looking at a very large-scale deployment of aid. We sent Puerto Rico more than 100 40-foot containers, and that is the kind of scale we are talking about here.
“We need to determine what the solution is going to be,” Raine said. “Will it be homes? Will entire villages need to be rebuilt? That is where the cash donations come in.”
Please go to www.FoodForThePoor.org/bahamas to make a donation.
You also may donate supplies via our Amazon Wish List, and they will be distributed to families in the Bahamas: www.FoodForThePoor.org/emergencysupplies.
HeadKnowles Foundation, working in conjunction with Sandals Foundation, and the Archdiocese of Nassau are the latest to join the charity’s relief efforts in the Bahamas. Last week, Food For The Poor announced it was responding with partners Sandals Foundation and the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida to identify greatest need and coordinate the distribution of aid.
Locally, South Florida residents, churches, schools, businesses and community organizations have responded to the call for help with a steady stream of relief items pouring into Food For The Poor’s Coconut Creek warehouse.
Food For The Poor is accepting donations of canned meats, canned fish and canned milk, both evaporated and condensed, and disposable diapers. Perishable items cannot be accepted.
Drop-off hours are weekdays through the end of this week between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. (Items should be taken directly to the warehouse, following the driveway around the right side of Food For The Poor.)
The Archdiocese of Nassau has four distribution points in its parish and has assembled a corps of more than 80 volunteers.
The Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida has 76 congregations as diverse as Southeast Florida itself running from Key West north to Jensen Beach and west to Clewiston. The Episcopal Church in Southeast Florida includes approximately 38,000 members including congregations that worship regularly in Spanish and French/Creole.
HeadKnowles Foundation is a nonprofit that organized relief operations during Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Joaquin in 2015.
The Sandals Foundation is a nonprofit organization aimed at fulfilling the promise of the Caribbean community by improving lives and preserving its natural surroundings through investments in sustainable regional projects and programs in education, community and the environment.
Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support for orphaned or abandoned children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.
Michael Turnbell
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6054
[email protected]