The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

HANDS for Hunger launched its school pantry initiative on Friday.

Officials from Hands for Hunger and FTX as well as the Minister of State for Education, Zane Lightbourne and corporate sponsors gathered at the New Providence Community Centre Auditorium to celebrate the launch of the school pantry initiative. This initiative will start with 15 schools across Nassau.

Thirteen pantries are already active in primary schools as well as junior and senior high schools in New Providence. The programme is aiming to ensure that no school child has to go hungry, as one of Hands for Hunger’s recent surveys indicates that one in four Bahamians suffers from food insecurity.

Precious Thompson, Hands for Hunger outreach manager, expressed her enthusiasm for this initiative, as she said the programme aimed to help feed hungry school children to boost their academic performance.

Ms Thompson said: “Today is such an exciting day, as we expand our programme with the launch of the Hands for Hunger school pantry initiative. Research has shown that children who experience less hunger will achieve higher academic performance and will have fewer emotional and behavioral problems. Hands for Hunger remains steadfast in the fight to reduce hunger and food wastage.”

She also thanked their government and corporate partners, including FTX, for making this initiative possible.

Clifton Josie, principal of Stephen Dillet Primary School, one of the recipients of the pantry initiative, thanked Hands for Hunger for providing the school the opportunity to help erase the learning gap.

Ms Thompson said that any school that wishes to join the programme can reach out to them as Hands for Hunger wants to see the School Pantry Initiative go nationwide.\

“Ever since we started the initial school pantry initiative, we do see that there are schools that are reaching out to us. And so, these are schools that we are looking to onboard and so we have schools, like I said, that are currently in the pipeline to be onboard and as we onboard those ones, we will then reach out to further schools to get them onboard.

“So, like I said, our goal is to make sure that the model is perfect enough so that this can be operated on every school campus across the Bahamas. So, any school out there, you can feel free to reach out to us, because we are very passionate about this programme.”