By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
The Salvation Army yesterday announced that it will be accepting Christmas donations via the Sand Dollar, the Bahamian digital currency, with help from Omni Financial Group.
Roodolph Meo, divisional commander of the Salvation Army in The Bahamas, told Tribune Business that despite the Central Bank’s commitment to any donation paid dollar for dollar with the digital currency they still need more help on the ground.
“We need more volunteers. We usually have around 35 volunteers, but we only have 25. We need ten more to man the stations around the island, including people on Grand Bahama and Eleuthera,” he said. “Donations are coming slowly this year, but we continue to trust the Bahamian people as they have come through for us last year, and we believe they will come through for us again this year with the $250,000. This Sand Dollar is just an additional way of giving.”
The Central Bank donated an initial $2,500 in Sand Dollars to the Salvation Army yesterday to mark the partnership’s start. Jermain Campbell, manager of its currency department, added: “The Central Bank is certainly delighted to be here to participate and to share with the Salvation Army, such a wonderful organisation who really looks after the poor and the underprivileged, and one of those civic societies that we should really patronise.”
Encouraging Bahamians to donate to the Salvation Army, Mr Campbell said: “We will begin by donating an initial $2,500, and we will certainly match all of those donations submitted via digital payments as well.”
Deirdre Andrews, business development manager at Omni Financial Group, said the company is “grateful” to be partnering with the Central Bank to assist the Salvation Army for its annual Christmas kettle bell drive.
She said: “With Omni Financial, we’ve been selected as the Sand Dollar wallet provider to the Salvation Army and gave them their Sand Dollar app.
“I think this is a wonderful tool that a lot of persons as well as companies should utilise during this year. One, because it’s a quick and seamless application, and two, also because there are lots of times when a lot of us are just running around shopping for the holidays, forgetting our wallets or don’t have the physical cash in our wallet at the time utilising Sand Dollars.
“It’s a seamless, quick, safe process where you can transmit money from your wallet to another person in a quick and safe fashion during this holiday because a lot of us don’t want to be walking around with cash.”
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