NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Security has develop into a growing issue for Great Commission Ministries feeding program, based on its President Walter Hanchell, who explained that he has noticed some people have develop into increasingly aggressive when waiting for his or her food.
“Persons are very frustrated and plus we’ve got a portion of our population which are indignant, not only with food but basically, we’ve got an indignant population and I feel its due to stress.
“So many individuals are unemployed and so many individuals don’t have any money to pay their bills and achieve this many things that they would love to achieve this that puts stress on people and stress erupts anger.”
The Great Commission President says the situation has not escalated to the acute but he believes that police presence would help the people coming for food assistance to remain so as.
“We’re in the method straight away of sending a letter to the Commissioner to get some assistance to be sure that that we’ve got an officer there during our serving hours to maintain order to maintain peace and I’m sure that’s going to occur.
“It’s not uncontrolled, we’ve got security there however the police make a giant difference you already know.”
Feeding charities yesterday said that they don’t have any plans of cutting back as they battle increasing grocery prices to offer meals for those less fortunate.
Executive Director of the Bahamas Feeding Network (BFN) James Palacious explained that there isn’t a one who has escaped the blow of the food price hike, nonetheless the organization stays steadfast in its mission to supply food where it’s most urgently needed.
“It’s almost immoral at this stage to reduce simply because the costs have gone up; the costs have gone up which suggests that more people need your services.
“[…] “Our money buys less generally speaking and we just need to proceed to look and see how we are able to accommodate a growing number of individuals.”
BFN is a significant food assistance distributor within the country that services over 100 organizations that donate food to people locally. Palacious said between $90 – $110 thousand is spent on a monthly basis to cover costs and that they’ve been pressed to be much more careful how they spend as they appear around for higher deals on food and more avenues for revenue.
He told Eyewitness News that as they donate, they’re told that the necessity locally is increasing, he added that they’re seeing new organizations which are reaching out for his or her help, but due to the current economic issues, they’ve needed to however the new charities on stand by.
“People have called in and we’ve got had to simply say hold on wee are regrouping but straight away because we don’t necessarily wish to reduce what we give to those that we’ve already had whilst we proceed to search for more funds in order that we could then give a number of more.
“We’ve got to attend until we regroup and be sure that that we are able to get some extra money so to talk after which we are able to speak about expanding that.”
“[…] if we resolve to up it, no amount is right to the extent that there may be all the time more that is required but you already know if we could increase that by about 20-30% then I feel we might be making more of an inroad into it.
Yesterday, Hanchell echoed similar sentiments saying that they’ve felt the impact of inflation, they usually understand that it’s a worldwide issue but they don’t plan to reduce on food distribution.
“It’s rough on us, so I could imagine what they’re going through. […]
“We’ve noticed that during the last couple of months that prices have risen, 20, sometimes 30% plus inflation, on not only food items but other related items that we’ve got to buy frequently.
“We noticed that due to the high cost of living now, after we go into the wholesalers we get less for our money and at the identical time we notice that we’ve got far more individuals coming in for assistance; and I noticed that we’ve got people who, middle-class individuals that we normally never helped they are actually coming in and trickling in and asking for help.”
Hanchell expressed additional concern over an impending recession which can result in a food shortage that would further complicate the problem.
“We normally average about 500 individuals each day that come to us for help, for food, but that number is growing each day.
“On a regular basis we see new faces and so we’d like help from the community, individuals who’re able to offer us some assistance in order that we are able to fill in that gap but we do our greatest, we only can serve based on our resources and we’re stretched right to the limit but we do one of the best we could,” Hanchell said.
Meat is the most important bill for the Great Commission, based on Hanchell.
“We cook about 200lbs of meat each day and that’s not an inexpensive bill, but we’ve got to seek out the cash. […] and so it’s costing us extra money and we’re getting less items for extra money, but that’s happening in every household so we aren’t any different.”
Each Palacious and Hanchel say they plan to proceed their donations on the present scale, potentially increasing the variety of food donations, nonetheless, they’re in search of to grow revenue in the method and proceed asking the community for support.
