Paula Busby at home in South Reward. (Robert Luckock photo)
SOUTH REWARD--Paula Busby remembers the night about a week ago when in a deep sleep she felt someone tapping on her shoulder to wake her up. She did not respond, but continued to sleep, knowing it surely could not be an intruder. Apart from her, only her son had a key to her house. And her mother had always told her not to give her voice to anyone while sleeping.
Was it real or was it a dream? Paula Busby now knows that surreal moment in the night was God contacting her in a dream.
“I heard this voice saying, ‘You have to feed the people,’ and I’m saying, ‘I’ve helped enough.’ He replies, ‘No, you haven’t helped enough’,” Busby says of her exchange with the Almighty.
Experiences like this are probably not uncommon for people of faith where God uses certain people as a conduit for a particular mission or a good deed. In this case feeding the people was the mission and Paula got to work straight away.
“I’ve been feeding or helping people all my life, and my mother did it before me,” she discloses. “Up until that dream I had not been doing anything, because I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent. I hadn’t planned anything.”
She plays down labels of being a philanthropist or a good Samaritan. But she does come across as gentle, unassuming, someone with a big heart. Amongst the new vocabulary emerging from the COVID-19 crisis, Paula could be described as a culinary front-line worker without PPE and ventilators but armed with a range of cooking pots, pans and utensils.
She’s been there – before Hurricane Irma, after Irma, firing up the BBQ, feeding hundreds, and now COVID-19 is the latest crisis that needs her help.
Her back story back in the day is certainly impressive, achieving her goals by the early age of 24, which largely explains why she is giving back to the community now. “I’ve done everything” she says matter-of-factly.
Her resumé includes everything from being in construction to working in timeshare sales, business and more. She was the top dealer trainer at the former Concord Hotel and Casino (now Maho Resort), sales manager at the former Spritzer and Fuhrmann jewellery store and top timeshare salesperson at Little Bay Hotel (now Divi Divi Resort).
This coming Saturday, June 13, from around midday she will be cooking free meals for some 300-400 needy people from her home at No. 6, Peach Road, in South Reward. It is a big undertaking mostly at her own expense, but she takes it in her stride. Bernard Halley from Simpson Bay will be contributing the fish and Kurt Joseph from The Daily Herald’s printery will be working the BBQ grill. Fish, fungi, johnny cakes, rice and peas, chicken, ribs, salad, are typical staples on the menu.
It is not a one-woman show, however. She has various schoolteachers she describes as her “angels” who are helping out, as well as her son Damien Richardson, one of five sons, who is an architectural engineer, former head of what was then VROM and currently ex-chairman of the Social Economic Council (SER).
According to Paula, the scale of vulnerable people in need and hungry in St. Maarten is much bigger than it appears, and she sees it first-hand. The government has been doing its part delivering food parcels to districts. She has not seen those deliveries in her neighbourhood since COVID-19 started but that does not mean it is not happening.
“I can’t feed people every day. I wish I could but I can’t,” she regrets. “A lot of people are struggling. I know the people in my neighbourhood are okay because we have done a lot of these BBQs before. But many people who are in difficult situations feel ashamed to come and join a queue for free food. That’s why we don’t see them and they remain in the shadows.”
That is also why cars will be used on Saturday to deliver meals in Sucker Garden, Dutch Quarter and Middle Region for people who will find it difficult to get to South Reward.
Damien joins the conversation briefly: “I’ve always reminded my mother about what a huge impact her mother had on her and what an inspiration she was,” he said. “She used to feed and house everybody. This is where my mother’s passion comes from. But it’s low-key and she doesn’t talk about it. A lot of St. Maarteners do stuff but don’t talk about it. It’s something they do, something that needs to be done but doesn’t need a reward or big flag to be unfurled.”
For Saturday, a register is being compiled of people who are genuinely in need of a meal, to avoid persons just turning up for a free meal. This is being coordinated by Ruth Sion (tel. 559-0610). She can be contacted to give information about vulnerable people in need.
