Student Revolving Loan Fund donates to Eden Lodge charity

The Student Revolving Loan Fund (SRLF) has donated cash to the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust, boosting its efforts to help provide for needy families across Barbados.

On Thursday, the SRLF made the donation to the charity at the Ministry of Education’s Constitution Road, St Michael location.
Loans Manager at the SRLF Suzanne Griffith said the board members of the government agency did not hesitate to approve the $5,000 donation, knowing that the number of individuals seeking assistance had increased especially over the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Student Revolving Loan Fund sees the donation of this type as an investment in the young, less fortunate persons of our nation. Given the current environment, the SRLF is aware that such donations are needed even more now,” said Griffith.

“Not only are such donations consistent with our desire to give back to our community, but it also allows us to provide financial assistance to you to assist them to strive to achieve academic excellence, which is central to what we do as an organization.

She said officials at the state-owned enterprise were pleased to make the donation, pointing out that not only private sector entities were responsible for helping.

“The fact that we are here today is the testimony of what government-owned entities can achieve,” she said while pointing out that the SRLF has been contributing to various charities over the years.

Accepting the donation on behalf of the Eden Lodge Charitable Trust, Billie-June Langdon, Public Relations Officer, said it would “go a long way” in helping the institution in assisting the many families that were in need across the island.

She explained that while the more than two-decade-old charity had been assisting needy families with back-to-school supplies and it had a Christmas programme in place, its assistance also spread out throughout the year.

She said since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Barbados last year March, there has been a definite increase in the number of people seeking help in obtaining critical day-to-day items, but said the charity itself was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the demands.

Langdon said: “The charity is like a godparent to families around Barbados in those communities who really need assistance.

So if a family needs, for example, a bottle of gas and they call us, that is where we step in and we assist.

“Over the last two years . . . the number of people seeking assistance has been increasing due to the climate we are living in right now – due to COVID, due to the loss of jobs – so we are getting an increasing number of families coming to us requesting and requiring more help. So that is why we need more financial assistance for us to assist those families.”
(MM)