The School Meals Project that was among the relief assistance given following Hurricane Irma’s catastrophic passage on September 6 came to an end recently (see Saturday edition). Since October more than 875,000 meals were prepared to provide breakfast and lunch every weekday to 3,000 youngsters at 18 elementary and five high schools.
What this must have meant to especially their parents, many of them struggling to make ends meet due to the devastated tourism economy, cannot be overstated. Teachers and other education officials too had no doubt been happy to know the pupils were not in the classroom trying to learn on an empty stomach.
Perhaps partly because of this, the past schoolyear’s results weren’t all that bad when considering that classes had been interrupted for close to a month. The student feeding initiative came from the Netherlands Red Cross aided by professionals of that country’s festival catering industry.
It was obviously a massive operation in which the hospitality section’s facilities at Sundial School played an important role. The building’s broken roof had to be repaired by Dutch army engineers and its kitchen restored first.
If an example was still needed of effective cooperation within the kingdom when it counts, this certainly qualifies. The Hague made 7 million euros in emergency funding available to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for short-term social projects such as this one and rebuilding damaged dwellings of vulnerable groups.
The same newspaper carried a front-page story about the post-Irma activities by North Carolina-based Samaritan’s Purse that have also concluded. The Christian humanitarian aid organisation delivered 91.3 metric tonnes of supplies, including 10,258 tarps, 12,973 blankets, 4,324 hygiene kits, 2,090 chlorination tabs, 50,450 litres of water, 3,630 Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) jerrycans and 4.57 metric tonnes of World Food Programme (WFO) high-energy biscuits.
Fifty-two churches received materials and/or assistance for repairs to their buildings, as did a total of 386 homeowners, of which 278 directly and 108 via the churches. No fewer than 2,500 Ace Mega Centre vouchers for US $,1000 each were distributed.
St. Maarten should be very appreciative for the help it received through not only these two programmes, but many more. The road to full recovery remains long and difficult, but the selfless efforts of others have helped enormously to take the first steps.
