The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Feeding Network (BFN) yesterday said corporate donations have dropped-off noticeably since the COVID pandemic even though one in every eight Bahamians is thought to be living in poverty.

Nicolette Archer, the BFN's office manager and executive assistant, called for at least 80 businesses to donate $1,000 monthly to enable the non-profit to continue its work. It provides food to 121 soup kitchens, feeding centres and church feeding programmes, and has provided over 1,122,336 meals to 129,492 individuals in the last year.

Ms Archer said that although BFN is still receiving donations they are not enough to sustain this level of activity and, as a result, it has had to alternate the monthly donations it provides to its partners.

She said: “We're still getting donations, but they're not at the level to sustain what we need. Considering that we literally eat our donations, it doesn't roll over. So we constantly need the money coming in and we're really looking for some donors.

"We really want to get 80 companies or businesses or individuals to give us $1,000 every month, so that we can at least get back to where we were last year of providing our 100-plus ministries with parcels every month. This year, we had to alternate and do with them every other month."

Bahamas Feeding Network estimates that one in eight Bahamians live below the poverty line, which was last estimated in 2013 to be $11.64 per day.

Felix Stubbs, its chairman, said that because of the economy more individuals are finding themselves living below the poverty line and in need of food assistance. He added that due to the decrease in donations the non-profit has seen a 36 percent reduction in their monthly distributed meal parcels, moving from 100,000 to 64,000.

He said: “The level of hunger has increased. Because of the nature of the economy we’ve seen more people below the poverty line who require these kinds of services. At one point in time we were feeding 100,000 meals a month. Right now, it’s a little over half of that, about 64,000, so it doesn’t mean that need has gone away it just means that our ability to address that need has diminished.”

Royal Caribbean International yesterday donated 25,000 pounds of turkey to the Bahamas Feeding Network. The cruise giant is the food distribution programme's largest corporate donor contributing over $500,000 in donations since 2019.