The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

A GRAND Bahama couple, in partnership with Wendy’s restaurant, hosted the children and staff at the Grand Bahama Children’s Home to a lunch on Friday.

Alexander and Valeria Burrows, who are residents of Freeport, are hoping that this becomes an annual event every January and are encouraging others to come forward and assist the home in other ways.

“We are very pleased as citizens of this community to be able to co-sponsor and host the children of the Grand Bahama Children’s Home and their faculty and staff,” said Mrs Burrows. “We are frequent patrons of Wendy’s and a week ago when the idea came to us we immediately approached Wendy’s about a partnership to co-sponsor and host the Grand Bahama Children’s Home to lunch here.”

Mrs Burrows said that Wendy’s accepted and came on board to partner with them in an initiative they called New Year’s Lunch Fund. The couple visited the home and was impressed with the children and the staff they met at the facility on Jobson Avenue. The home cares for children who have been removed from their families for reasons of abandonment, abuse or neglect. It presently cares for 20 children from infants to 12-years-old.

Mrs Burrows noted that her husband, a former trade unionist, came from very humble beginnings in Mayaguana. “Growing up in a single parent home with a mother and the sixth of seven children, things were really tough for his family, and he said that if there were a children’s home located on the island of Mayaguana, he believes he would have been one of those residents because of how difficult it was back then,” she said.

“So we were moved with compassion when we visited the children’s home, and how well (the children) are taken care of, and we wanted to support that, and do something to thank the workers of the children’s home who take such good care of children and ensure that their needs are met,” Mrs Burrows said.

Mr Burrows said that he would also be contributing some Mayaguana sugar cane to the home’s garden. “I saw their garden, and they really need a little more help in that area,” he said.

Jean Hivert, treasurer of Grand Bahama Children’s Home, commended the couple and Wendy’s for hosting the lunch. “We are grateful to the community of Grand Bahama for the way they helped us in the past year and going forward we hope to be able to finish the renovations we started,” he said. “We are also hoping that maybe a psychologist can volunteer to come and help the children because although we can help with their physical needs, we can’t help with their emotional needs because some of them have suffered so much before they come to us. So, a psychologist in the New Year will be very well received so we could help the children,” he said.

The home is funded in part by an annual grant from the government which covers most of the staff’s salaries. The remainder of the home’s operational expenses, including all utilities, food, clothing, school supplies, medical and dental costs, transportation costs and all the other operational costs are funded by private donations and fundraising.