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By Sonia Farmer
Lyford Cay Foundation Scholar
Pratt Institute '09
To fight the hunger problem in The Bahamas, you need to have a strong stomach.
“The best way for interested members of the public to become familiar with our work is to spend a day on one of our trucks, which will give them an opportunity to experience first hand the scope of our programme,” says Ashley Lepine, Executive Director of the non-profit group Hands for Hunger (H4H), the only large-scale food rescue organization in the country.
Every day, H4H picks up fresh food that would otherwise go to waste — from grocery stores, food wholesalers, restaurants and hotels — and transports it in refrigerated trucks to community centres, shelters, churches and soup kitchens. Since launching operations in March of this year, H4H has effectively redistributed 100,000 pounds of food, hugely impacting the landscape of food waste and food assistance throughout New Providence.
“Picking up the food and seeing how much of it is habitually wasted, that’s one thing — part of our green mandate to prevent food from being unnecessarily thrown away,” adds Ms. Lepine. “We then turn directly to the humanitarian efforts at the core of H4H: delivering this food to places that provide meals to those most in need.”
One such place is Great Commission Ministries International, at #16 Wulff Road, which provides emergency shelter, counseling and food to hundreds of disadvantaged men, women and children. On any given day — if it is fortunate enough to have supplies on hand — the organization hands out 40–50 grocery packages from its food bank, and serves approximately 150 hot meals at its feeding centre. It also sends food to elderly or disabled shut-ins, provides meals at its various shelters, and feeds at least 80 children on Saturdays as part of its ‘Save the Children Club’.
As with so many groups who are dedicated to combating hunger, the Ministries constantly struggle to keep up with the demand for their services.
“We’ve seen a very marked increase in the number of people coming to us, especially people who would be considered middle class,” says Minalee Hanchell, the organization’s Executive Director. “They have been laid off or evicted, and are laying aside their pride to get some clothing or a few hot meals for themselves and their children. I remember a lady coming in and I gave her a food package and she started to cry. She said, ‘This is such a big help for me. I have five children. I left them crying for something to eat.’”
“The hunger population is a different population now,” stresses Ms. Lepine. “We have been getting reports of more families showing up to receive food support, in addition to individuals who are out of work or homeless. All of the 13 agencies we deliver food to have experienced a huge surge in who is seeking help.”
Recently, the jobs of H4H and the Ministries were made a little easier thanks to a combined donation of $27,500 from Lyford Cay Foundation, Inc.’s Gifts and Grants Committee, a powerful catalyst for change in The Bahamas that has awarded more than $12 million dollars to local charities and non-profit groups since its establishment 40 years ago.
Over the past year, due to the economic downturn, the Committee has been concentrating on addressing people’s most basic needs.
“We learned that Great Commission Ministries focuses on providing food, clothing and shelter, so we encouraged them to apply for a grant,” says Suzy Robinson, Committee Chair. “We found them to be well organized and successful in meeting the needs of their clients and were happy to provide funding for their food programmes. At the same time, we were particularly interested in Hands for Hunger because their mission is very specific: to eradicate hunger in The Bahamas. We were impressed by the work they had done to ‘qualify’ both donors and recipients of food, and by their unique approach to serve their clients well. We found the people at both of these organizations to be professional, enthusiastic, and passionate about their mission.”
Great Commission Ministries International used its grant to purchase items for its food bank, and to acquire a new stove for its feeding centre as well as an oven for its women’s shelter.
“We are so grateful to the Lyford Cay Foundation,” says Mrs. Hanchell. “We really wish that more persons would reach out and help like they are doing. I was so grateful for that stove. Our burners and oven were not working at the feeding centre, and now we can more quickly and effectively prepare meals. I wish I’d had a camera to capture the looks on the faces of the women at our shelter when we got that oven. They were so excited to get it and to start baking.”
At Hands for Hunger, two separate gifts from the Lyford Cay Foundation have helped to provide fuel and electricity for their refrigerated trucks, and to purchase aluminum pans, food grade labels, and a hand trolley.
“The Lyford Cay Foundation, being one of our first supporters, basically directly allowed Hands For Hunger to become operational,” says Ms. Lepine. “Through their sponsorship, we were able to secure more food supplies so that more meals are getting to who they need to.”
H4H’s ultimate aim is to help ensure that one day, every Bahamian will have daily access to adequate nutrition.
“To maintain a sense of integrity and humanity for anyone who has fallen on hard times, not just opening a can of food for them but giving them full, hot meals is really important,” says Ms. Lepine.
Since Great Commission Ministries became a recipient of H4H’s food donations last year, it has been able to increase both the quantity and the quality of food that it distributes.
“There were so many days where we were just about to run out of food and we would see if we could try and put together something, anything quick because people are in there and they’re hungry, and then Hands for Hunger would pull up,” says Mrs. Hanchell. “And all we’d have to do is just warm the food, and feed people. I always say to Ashley and to the drivers, ‘You all have come at such a timely moment.’ They have also come to us with meals that we would normally not be able to afford to purchase, like certain types of meat. The quality enhances our meals on the whole.”
The Ministries provide free counseling on a wide variety of topics to hundreds of people, but food is, undeniably, the thing that brings the most comfort to those who are seeking help. Without food, Mrs. Hanchell points out, people cannot begin to address other areas of lack in their lives.
“You can’t talk to a person and be counseling them about their life or their marriage or anything if they’re hungry,” Mrs. Hanchell says. “One of the first things I do when a person comes in and says they need emergency shelter or a food package or counseling is to ask them, ‘Did you eat anything? Did you eat lunch?’ And about nine times out of ten, they say that they haven’t eaten. And I pause right there and let them eat before we talk.”
The conviction that hunger is the root cause of many of the serious ills facing our society is shared by H4H, and has driven its evolution.
“The hunger issue is tied to a plethora of other social issues we often address,” says Alanna Rodgers, the group’s co-founder. “If we look at our community and the ways, for example, some people just throw garbage all over the street, we ask, why does that happen? Why is it occurring? It’s occurring because this person has no sense of responsibility for our environment. But if someone doesn’t have food to eat, can you really ask them to be concerned about a beach clean-up? For us, that revelation led to the shift from, ‘let’s go green’ to, ‘let’s address the most basic issues.’”
A former participant in Lyford Cay Foundation, Inc.’s SEARCH programme, which assists young people in the college application process and helps them secure financial aid from colleges and universities in North America, Ms. Rogers attended Rice University in Houston, Texas to train for competitive tennis — until she lost her passion for the sport a year and a half into her studies and began to re-evaluate her priorities. She left college and took a year off, channeling her energies into volunteer work and eventually finding her passion for humanitarian entrepreneurship.
“When I stopped playing tennis, which filled up a lot of my life, I experienced this big loss on a personal level. I really needed to do a lot of work in terms of redefining my self-identity at that point. I had to expand my perception of who I was as a human being and what I was capable of,” Ms. Rodgers explains. “I never saw myself as being a community activist of any sort. I didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing. I just knew that, like many of our generation, I wanted to see a better world where we’re taking responsibility for our environment and each other. My feeling is, if I’m not here to make a difference, then what am I here for?”
For details about Hands For Hunger go to www.handsforhunger.org. Great Commission Ministries International may be reached at telephone (242) 325-5801 or by emailing info@gcmglobal.org
PHOTOS
1: Hands for Hunger (H4H) driver Francis Burrows picks up food donated by Atlantis recently. H4H is The Bahamas' only large-scale food rescue organization.
2 – 6: The donated food is delivered by H4H to Great Commission Ministries International at the Erma Miller Centre on Wulff Road.
7: Cook Marie Rolle prepares a hot meal at the Ministries' feeding centre.
8: Lunch is served. On any given day — depending on what supplies are on hand — the Ministries provide approximately 150 free hot lunches to people in need.
9: A young lady enjoys lunch at the feeding centre.
Photos by Tim Aylen
