Mrs. Rose Hodge-Adams, Co-Founder and CEO of the Children of the Caribbean Foundation, has presented a quantity of school supplies to the Department of Social Development for distribution to needy students on the island. There is also a promise of financial assistance for deserving students desirous of pursing regional examinations.
Mrs. Hodge-Adams, whose Anguillian father is Whittington Hodge of Stoney Ground, presented the school supplies comprising backpacks, books, pens and pencils, to Commissioner of Social Development, Sanford Richardson, on May 24.
The Children of the Caribbean Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, where Mrs. Hodge-Adams resides, was formed in 2010 by a group of friends and relatives and is run by a board of international directors. She described the group as “a very warm, generous and caring group of friends and family.”
She said she was moved by the fact that persons who had no attachment to the Caribbean had readily come forward to the Children of the Caribbean Foundation. “This is because they believe in the work that we do, and they care about children no matter where they live anywhere in the world,” she stated. “This [the donation] is only possible through the efforts of friends. We raise money in Los Angeles and we buy the supplies there and deliver them all across the Caribbean. It is a lot of work, but it is good work, and God gives me the energy and strength to keep going and I am happy to be in Anguilla.”
Mr. Sanford Richardson said the school supplies would be distributed by his department to needy children across the island. “These are difficult times for many families. It is therefore heartening that the charity group – the Children of the Caribbean Foundation – saw it fit to make such a worthy, timely and practical contribution to be utilised by some students in Anguilla,” he told the reporters.
“My department will conduct the necessary assessments to ensure that these school supplies are given to those children who are most deserving by way of need and value of education. I hasten to say, however, that this is not the first time thatAnguillian children, through the Department of Social Development, would be benefitting from the generous work of the Children of the Caribbean Foundation. A few years ago, the charity sponsored a Christmas party, at the Anguilla Great House, for selected underprivileged children along with their parents. The charity also donated a similar generous donation of school supplies.
“The department is very appreciative of this gesture and hopes that this partnership will remain strong, and that the recipients of these supplies will value them by good academic performance as well as exemplary behaviour.”
Mr. Richardson disclosed thatthe Children of the Caribbean Foundation had undertaken to sponsor either in full, or in part, a number of students sitting the CXC examinations in 2014. The recipients must be both needy and academically-inclined.
