Red Cross giving food vouchers to the vulnerable this Christmas

Despite their financial woes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the British Virgin Islands Red Cross will be awarding food vouchers to more than 50 vulnerable households during the upcoming Christmas season.

This is according to the BVI Red Cross Director Stacy Lloyd, who told BVI News that while the organisation was made to revisit their intended initiatives, they have repurposed their available funds to provide food vouchers valuing $100 to $125.

“The food vouchers will allow for persons to go to the grocery store and to get whatever food supply they need,” Lloyd stated. 

She said persons eligible for these vouchers include “elderly persons, persons with health conditions, persons with young children who are not working, persons with mental illnesses, and persons who have been affected by COVID-19 financially”.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to be distributed

Lloyd also said the Red Cross has been distributing PPE equipment to vulnerable persons and will continue to do so as the pandemic maintains a presence globally.

“What we did was to assess persons based on their vulnerability and once they’re eligible, we have a kit that we put together which consists of about six masks and we partnered with Clover’s to make these masks and to distribute to the vulnerable persons. It consists of antibacterial soap, sanitizer and also a face shield,” she stated.

Initiatives geared to raise funds

Director Lloyd further said that to cope with the declining revenues, the organisation will continue to push its thrift shop which will assist with generating funds along with the established paid services.

She said: “Our thrift shop, we’ve been pushing it a lot in terms of sustainable shopping for both clothing and household goods and so forth. It’s like a department store and we found that since the pandemic, persons who already have been affected, they come to the thrift shop as an alternative to get what they need. So we are encouraging persons to continue to donate goods”.

“We are continuing our first aid courses and that is one of our sources of income. The courses have changed somewhat to be conducive to pandemics so it is very important that persons do the first aid courses so that they can be up to date with the best practices as it relates to giving CPR or using AED machine on somebody who may have coronavirus,” Lloyd added.

Meanwhile, the BVI Red Cross recently elected three new persons to sit in the key executive positions on their board of directors.

These include Troy Christopher as its new Chairman, Bevin Braithwaite as Vice-Chair, and Sylvia Moses as Treasurer.