South Coast senior citizens receive care packages

FIFTY shut-ins and senior citizens in five adjoining communities in Black River, St Elizabeth, were recently presented with care packages by members of Crawford Community Development Committee (CDC).

The packages — which included sanitisers, toiletries, and groceries — were purchased by the Sandals Foundation from the Lasco Chin Foundation, through Sandals South Coast Resort team members. The items provide relief to the social needs of residents impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic and subsequent islandwide stay-at-home policy for people over the age of 70.

Benefiting from the delivery were residents of Fustic Grove, Crawford, Hill Top, Dalintober, and Sandy Ground.

“It was a challenge for many residents to get to the grocery store and purchase the items they needed. The communities are in hilly areas with limited amounts of taxis,” a news release quoted Crawford CDC Vice-Chairman Garnett Smith.

“With a mandatory restriction on the number of passengers that can be carried in a car and the nightly curfews, we knew that we had to do what we could to help,” Smith said, adding that the committee thought it was important to mobilise help for the residents who were experiencing challenges moving around.

The recipients, Smith noted, are between 60 and 80 years old and are dependent on family members to care for their needs.

In preparing the care packages, Adrian Whitehead, general manager of Sandals South Coast, who is also a Sandals Foundation ambassador, said the Sandals Resorts chain regards it as its duty to support residents of the communities in which it operates properties.

The global health crisis, he noted, “calls upon each of us to look around and see where we can all lend a helping hand and ease the needs of our neighbours and the most vulnerable. The resort and the Sandals Foundation will continue to look for avenues where we can be of service so we can recover from this pandemic even stronger”.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/south-coast-senior-citizens-receive-care-packages_192301