New Providence Community Church (NPCC) has been working tirelessly to provide displaced Hurricane Dorian victims with food and housing assistance over the last 14 months.
Now, entering the holiday season, NPCC has decided to do something extra special for the 1,500 individuals that they continue to feed each week.
“We’re running a holiday initiative where, in addition to giving out the groceries that they’re always receiving, we’re going to give them turkeys for Christmas as well,” said Matthew Sweeting, 48, head pastor at NPCC.
“A lot of the families, they don’t realize that they’re about to get some big ol’ turkeys for Christmas. It’s going to be so much fun,” he said.
“We feel like Santa Claus.”
Each one of NPCC’s food boxes can feed a family of six for two weeks. The goal is to provide 600 boxes.
“We run this thing completely off of donations,” Sweeting said.
“People are blowing me away on a regular basis with their generosity.
“We’ve learned that you’ve just got to take a leap of faith and people will honor your risk by supporting you.”
For a donation of just $200, NPCC will be able to feed one family for two weeks (168 meals).
With a donation of $5,000, that figure skyrockets to 25 families (4,200 meals).
Sweeting said the more donations that come in, the more turkeys NPCC will be able to buy.
And, to support the local economy, they will all be purchased from Bahamian businesses.
NPCC currently provides for 160 families from Abaco, 140 of which are still living in Nassau.
“We’ve fallen in love with these people, we know them on a first name basis,” Sweeting said.
“Their lives are so disrupted and many of them don’t really know when they can go back to these islands.
“Right now, it seems like their most pressing daily need is — can you help to feed us?”
Sweeting said that if you ask anyone from NPCC if they thought they’d still be feeding evacuees in March, they’d say probably not.
“But COVID has changed all of that,” he said.
On top of Dorian evacuees, there are an additional 100 families that NPCC supports every week that have been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID was the great leveler, it kind of pushed the clock back to zero,” Sweeting said.
He explained how around June or July of this year, NPCC expanded its feeding program to also feed families affected by the pandemic.
“We will continue to do this,” he said, “but our main impetus is to care for people from Abaco.”
While NPCC acknowledges that other organizations doing great things as well, they find that oftentimes when you get a few months away from the hurricane, people tend to forget about the evacuees.
“If we don’t remember these people, we’re not quite sure who else will,” Sweeting admitted.
Especially with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, as news stories took a turn from focusing on Hurricane Dorian to covering the pandemic, NPCC knew that they had to maintain their valiant efforts.
The holiday initiative has just begun, but NPCC has been providing groceries to Dorian victims for over a year.
Sweeting said that NPCC’s recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Irma prepared them above anything else for the devastation brought on by Dorian.
By the time Hurricane Dorian hit, NPCC had already developed robust relationships with wholesale agencies, corporate partners, hotels, civic clubs— the list goes on.
“A lot of those people came back and said, ‘okay well, what do you need this time?’ ” Sweeting explained.
NPCC tries to set three to six month targets. Right now, their target is to feed people for another six months before re-evaluating the scenario.
Wednesday is feeding day at NPCC.
“We buy Bahamian,” Sweeting said.
NPCC purchases food from various wholesale organizations in addition to having arrangements with local farmers and bakeries.
“Every week we do fresh fruits and vegetables along with eggs and bread, it’s not just non-perishables,” he said.
“We try to give them complete meals so they don’t have to go to the grocery store for the most part.”
Sweeting noted that NPCC also has a lot of partners overseas that donate food. This allows them to allocate more food per box than what persons would typically get from other organizations.
“Our approach is about consistency,” Sweeting said.
He explained that regardless of whether a family consists of three people or of six people, they’re still going to get the same amount of food.
“We don’t break it down into smaller parcels because we don’t want people feeling that they’re being left out,” he said.
NPCC’s model is built on trust and relationships.
Sweeting said, “Our philosophy is very simple: everybody gets the same amount.”
The 1,500 people that are fed each week know that every time they return, they won’t receive any less food than the week before.
“People love the fact that we keep it consistent. So if that means that we have to purchase locally to make sure that they’re getting the same amounts, that’s fine as well.”
NPCC is also committed to showing each and every donor exactly where their money is going.
Because they register every individual being fed, they’re able to show donors the precise trajectory of their donation.
“We try to make sure we’re super transparent, because when the next storm comes around, what’s going to determine whether or not you get corporate partnership or even personal generosity is whether you proved yourself in the last storm,” Sweeting said.
“If you’re going to deal with us, we want to make sure that you don’t have to worry about your donation. We’ll use it exactly for what it’s intended for.”
Sweeting said that the most rewarding aspect of his work at NPCC is being able to help people without asking for anything in return.
NPCC feeds as many Dorian and COVID-19 victims as they can regardless of who they are or what they look like.
“I love going to work every day,” Sweeting said.
“It’s nice to look your fellow Bahamians and Haitians in the eyes and say: we love you, come get some more food, and we’ll see you next week.”
The post NPCC seeking donations to provide holiday meals for Dorian evacuees appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/npcc-seeking-donations-to-provide-holiday-meals-for-dorian-evacuees/
No comments:
Post a Comment