Lines of tents, food stalls and other accommodation facilities obscured the old East End School building on Monday, June 15, which was a national holiday in Anguilla for the Queen Official Birthday. The mass of tents and seating areas transformed the former school grounds into a place where there was hardly room for standing or walking.
It is the third year of such a community fundraising event at East End, called “a Village Ting”, and it was heavily patronised by a large crowd from throughout the island. Aside from a boat race at Sandy Ground, the “Village Ting” was organised for the above holiday.
Mrs. Cora Richardson Hodge, Elected Representative for District 2, and Minister of Home Affairs, who was present at the event in her private capacity, is among the persons involved in the annual function.
The Minister, whose background is an Attorney-at-Law, spoke to The Anguillian about the event. She stated in part: “The entities or persons involved in the function are the Morris Vanterpool Primary School; the HOPE Centre; the AXA Food Bank; the Deion Richardson’s family; the Deion Richardson Bicycle Race; and the Anguilla Cycling Association and a number of vendors and other persons in the community.
Mrs. Richardson-Hodge continued: “It is really a fundraiser. It is a time for persons in the community to come out and bring their children and for all of them to have fun and to relax. We have a kids fashion show; toys, games, bead-making, face-painting and a lot of other things for the children. We also have bicycle races which comprise seven categories – five of which are for children.
“This is the third year we have been having the “Village Ting” and it is getting bigger every year. We started at 10 am and will end at 10 pm, and are expecting the crowd to get bigger as the day goes by.”
As mentioned above, one of the participating fundraising groups was the AXA Food Bank, managed by the Anguilla Cares Committee. Among the members is Mrs. Charlotte Burglund who was interviewed by The Anguillian. “We are struggling to have enough donations in order to buy sufficient food because we have more than a hundred and twenty people on our list right now – from West End to Island Harbour,” she said. “This means we have to access a lot of food for distribution to them. Yes, we are struggling, but we are doing the best we can to help the needy persons. We need money and that’s why we are here today, trying to raise some funds.”
The Anguilla Food Bank Cares Committee has placed food-collecting drums in supermarkets across the island for donations from the public. The collected food items are stored in a warehouse at Tropical Distributors at Sandy Hill. There, the food supplies are packaged and collected by community persons for distribution to the recipients.”
