Feeding initiative above board, says Sandy Lane Trust

Trustee with the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust (SLCT) Phillipa Challis is stoutly defending the transparency of the organisation’s Feed a Family Programme, which was introduced to assist families impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, she revealed that the initial $1.5 million programme that was to last six weeks was expanded to $4.5 million for a longer period because of the overwhelming number of people requiring assistance.

In fact, Challis said that with Christmas around the corner and some families still not employed, the SLCT would be adding another $1.5 million to the programme.

She made the disclosure during a brief presentation ceremony, at the Country Club at Sandy Lane, to hand over more than $400 000 paediatric interventional cardiology devices to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

“Knowing that Christmas is around the corner and people are still out of work and struggling, the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust has agreed to fund the last and final $1.5 million worth of vouchers. This will bring our total donation to the SLCT Feed a Family programme to $6 million,” said Challis.

Following the introduction of the programme in early May, when it was announced that thousands of food vouchers would be distributed through the 30 constituency offices, there was widespread outcry that the process may not be fair or transparent, and that it was political.

However, on Wednesday, Challis said the programme was started to meet the immediate needs of people and the emergency of the situation facing households, and nothing more.

“At the last press conference we didn’t feel it necessary to justify our actions or explain the controls put in place to guarantee that no political agenda could be exercised, and now $4.5 million worth of vouchers later we can safely say that the majority of the persons appealing for some relief have received it,” she said.

Challis said that, so far, some 90 000 food vouchers have been distributed.

“We knew it was asking a great deal when we agreed for the first 30 000, but we truly did not appreciate the volume of requests or the sheer desperation. So, here we are at 90 000,” she said.

Challis and another SLCT member also distributed over 1 300 food hampers with fresh produce during the lockdown period in June.

The philanthropist said the process was a transparent one, explaining that each voucher was numbered, and each individual was required to disclose details, including contact information and the number of children in the household.

Checks were also done to determine whether families had received vouchers through the programme before.

“All of this is entered on a control sheet and submitted to our offices before the next tranche of vouchers is released,” she said, while issuing a heartfelt thanks to Members of Parliament, their personal assistants, all constituency office staff and their volunteers who ensured that the vouchers went to “the right families”.

Challis said investigations were also done through the Welfare Department and other organisations, and the Trust “requested and received full transparency”.

“The few queries on eligibility have been reported and jointly discussed and resolved,” she added.

Challis made it clear that the $1.5 million worth of vouchers for the Christmas period would be the last under the Feed a Family programme, “as the bank account is now empty and without our one large annual fundraising event being held last year, we are unsure of our resources going forward”.

She acknowledged that even though there was no further COVID-19 lockdown in Barbados and tourists were finally trickling back in, there was still “a long way to go”.

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)