Foodbank aims to help 1,000s in need
(CNS): Two local businessmen and a pastor have joined forces with other volunteers to create a centralized food bank and cooking facility to help supply non-profits, such as churches and charities, feeding families in need. At a launch for the new charity, officials from the Needs Assessment Unit revealed that they are helping around 2,500 families but believe many more people going hungry.
Organisers hope that the creation of The Good Samaritan will both help those in need and reduce food waste.
Woody Foster, MD of Foster’s Food Fair, Choppy Delapenha from the Holiday Inn and Charles Boucher from the First Assembly of God explained the concept of the new food bank at the launch. They said that they want to use perishable food as well as dried goods, which they will cook to supply prepared meals from a central location in the Industrial Area that can be donated to all of the different local charitable food suppliers.
It’s not yet clear how the charity will actually deliver on the goal to eliminate hunger, as the organisers still appear to have a number of challenges ahead to work out how to collect food from restaurants, hotels and supermarkets before it goes to waste. Coordinating how they will get the prepared food to where it is needed is another challenge, but the organisers were confident that they will adapt as they go.
Woody Foster said they hoped to have the kitchen, which is at a rent-free location in the Industrial Area, up and running before the school year begins in September, because the issue of children going hungry is at the forefront of the concerns.
He pointed out that in the past, perishable food went to waste because of food handling concerns. However, with this central point, The Good Samaritan volunteers will ensure best practice in the food preparation and that wherever the food goes, they are well-trained and aware of the need to keep the food safe.
The new charity plans to take in whatever perishable food comes its way and will turn it into new food that can be delivered wherever it’s needed, so that meals can be made and delivered in the heart of communities.
It is also a big step towards eliminating food waste, in accordance with the international trend of reducing food waste, even in countries like France, where legislation now prevents supermarkets from throwing food away.
For more about the Good Samaritan and how you can help with cash, resources, time or food, visit the website here.
Category: Local News
How many using this service have a cell phone?
The Needs Assessment Unite needs to identify who actually needs help and who needs money for their alcohol, drug and laziness problem. I can see that number dropping by half if this were to occur.
Half? 90% more like. Like the unemployment myth.
Imagine if the entire electrical supply in Cayman were solar-powered to all households and business entities islandwide…
A move like that could free up individual incomes and allow more money to be spent on daily essentials.
So there would be local inflation and the money would just shift to the business owning class.
I know my Country pretty well because of silently helping in the Communities most of my life. I do not know of that many Caymanians not having food yo eat. There are a lot who are too lazy to prepare food for their kids and the rest of the family. Then again a lot of our women do not know how to prepare a meal. A hood idea would be to open a School teaching the parents how to prepare healthy food. Its good of Mr Foster to donate but then those in need should be able to cook it. We have brought this on ourselves, as this poverty is imported. Almost every kid past ten yes old walks around with a cell phone. Is that poverty?
I worked in the inner city, US, for many years and the teenagers were given free breakfast and free lunch at school as they were living below poverty. These same students ( not all, but quite a few) had were driving to school in Mercedes, jaguars, BMW’s. They all had the latest cell phone. They skipped the free breakfast and walked across the street to Dublin Donuts for a hot chocolate or smoothie and would skip out at lunch to Wendy’s for lunch. I couldn’t afford to do that 5 days a week. I drove a 10 year old car.
There were students in definite need, but a huge number abused the system!
Never in my days growing up in Cayman would I had envisioned an era in which THOUSANDS of Caymanians would be in need of FOOD ASSISTANCE.
A lot could be said and focus could be applied to individual failed policies of our successive governments, but at the end of the day what is missing from the government / handling of our country is SYNERGY.
There is absolutely no connection between the cogs of our community.
Be it our main industries of finance and tourism, the education and investment to prepare our youths therefor, the despicable refusal of said industries to acknowledge and honour their corporate civic responsibility (e.g. “we refuse to employ another graduate of the hospitality school on account of the misdeeds of one individual”), the absurd and parallel farce that is our immigration and workforce policies (slave labour), the mass migration into the country, runaway inflation, the discrimination against locals in the workplace (and now tourism industry – actually, that has been happening for a while), the accepted racism and segregation in the country, the elimination of a once vibrant and majority percentage middle-class … nothing connects with the other.
Fast-forward to current day, and we apparently have a reality of near-starving people in a “wealthy” island paradise.
What is most depressing is the nonchalant attitude from those that should know better, those that happen to be doing okay, and of course the current government.
Speaking as a relatively young Caymanian male, mark my words when I say, the ratio of criminally-minded to positively-productive teens and young adult males is rapidly reversing.
This will not end well.
My only hope is when the pipe bursts, because it will eventually burst from the pressure, the desperate rioters take out their frustrations not on themselves but those responsible for their collective plight. (Feel free to red-herring and magnify that comment – but I meant it.)
Nevertheless, as we saw expressed by the biggest spender during the recent campaign, our “business community” firmly believes that more of the same is the answer to the problem.
Good luck with that … they obviously don’t walk in the circles I do.
– Whodatis
*It must be said, more could be done on the part of some Caymanians as it concerns preparing their children and selves for modern Cayman.
Unlike the USA and the UK, we don’t have any room for slackness, government-dependency and the like.
Cayman has proven to the world it doesn’t think twice about doubling its population in less than a generation – these stakes are high folks.
It is easy to fix but no one wants to do it. One act of random kindness even once a day can make significant changes to the Islands. It used to be the Cayman way.
I don’t know when the turning point started or what sparked the shift in attitudes. However, there is an us and then set of attitudes – expats vs locals. There is a disdain and lack of interest in taking care of the children on a mass basis, rather than just a handful.
How to fix? Well if one person each day did something kind for another person each day, it would snowball into fixing every problem. This food bank is a wonderful idea. I do hope others realize that there is so much more that can be done.
For the ones that come to the island and ‘hit it rich’ or even the ones that have nothing, an hour a week to do something as simple as smile or hold a door open for the person behind to as elaborate as volunteering at one of the charities such as the food bank. Of course this is not restricted to expats. All residents of the island should engage in one act of random kindness daily, weekly etc including visitors. Maybe consider adding that motto in immigration at the airport and the ports to remind visitors and returning residents alike to be kind to others.
I love this idea <3 Amazing work and thank you for stepping up and getting the ball rolling. Ofcourse there will be questions, and logistics that need to be worked out and will continue to be a work in progress. I think a good start would be to identify those in need in each district and maybe each constituency (who aren't already getting the food vouchers, and NAU $500 per month) and then maybe team up with churches in those districts and ask for volunteers to help with the distribution from those locations. Also, maybe once these constituency councils are formed those persons can be leveraged as well. So 1) all the food is prepared at the Industrial location per district and drop points. 2) Once meals/ goods received at district drop points, volunteers are in and ready to carry to individuals who have been identified.
Good project. However, I must query why some persons are “hungry”? Cannot work? Will not work? Spending money on non-necessary items like cell phones, TV, etc.?
It seems that the more the public helps the more “needy” persons appear.
government too busy feeding and encouraging employment of other nationalities in order to help or get to root of problem? psst…they dont make any work permit revenue out of businesses hiri g caymanian’s?? and yes, i am a native caymanian….? just feel for my people…
@1.32pm What a useless comment. Made up stuff.
I’m not sure how this relates to anything? The nationality of those people in need were not identified so I advise you not to bring up the Us vs Them argument.
On a brighter note, Caymanian or not everyone including children have the right to be fed and hydrated by all means necessary.
Your whole government is an example of welfare at its worst. There will always be people who are for various reasons unemployable, this is no reason to deny their children a means to be healthy, ready to learn and have access to free medical cover. It is what civilised societies do to ensure the next generation do not become more marginalised, are educated and able to become responsible members of our society. Failure to do so will ensure more gated communities and higher numbers in prisons.
Having food banks in such a rich country means we are failing to ensure there is a safety net for our most vulnerable citizens. The whole issue of parents not cooking, relying on fast food and not spending time with their children is a whole different fferent can of worms.
Thank God the people are growing wiser through consciousness.
We must be the only country in the world where low income people are going hungry and we have a serious obesity crisis in the same income bracket.
Is Mississippi a country?
Neither are countries, but as a native of Mississippi I can see some similarities.
Let me explain. When you income is to low to afford good food from the supermarket, you are forced to eat a 2$ cheeseburger with fries.
A healthy salad is better than the cheeseburger. Water is better than soda. Cancel the tv and cell phone for awhile until you catch up on bills and eat a healthier meal.
On that obesity note, it should be a health violation that there are so many Burger Kings on island.
The Burger King located on Walkers Road should’ve never been allowed to be built there without at least ONE other alternative that serves healthy foods, even if it was sandwiches and fruit.
(And no, patties and hotdogs aren’t any healthier than whoppers and fries.)
This would be a better use of all those millions Dr T… Just sayin’.
Maybe a good idea for doctors and hospitals to do the same.
There are lots of people not getting the care they need because the only health insurrance policy they can afford doesn’t cover much.