COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Sept. 19, 2012) – The SOS Children’s Village in Montego Bay, Jamaica, is a sanctuary of sorts and is located within the pretty hills near one of the island’s most popular resort destinations. The orphaned, the abandoned and those whose families are unable to care for them have had this place of refuge to turn to for more than four decades.
Like many orphanages on the island, the kindness of strangers also helps with the support of the youth in their care, strangers that in most cases the recipients would never get to meet. However, one group of workers from South Miami Hospital made it their mission in partnership with Food For The Poor, to personally distribute clothes, shoes, hats, bags, soccer balls and a variety of toys to 81 children in the care of the SOS Children’s Village.
“It was a wonderful experience,” said Rooney Brodie, Manager of Community Affairs at South Miami Hospital. “The children were so gracious, so polite and so sweet. It was really heartwarming to provide them some assistance, and in some cases, to their extended family members who also were impacted.”
With the help of the Rotary Club of South Miami, South Miami Hospital created Charity for Children after the back-to-back hurricanes of 2004 stormed across the Caribbean islands. Alternating between the Bahamas and Jamaica, the charity has since traveled once a year for the last eight years bearing gifts. With so many donations to give to the children in the Montego Bay orphanage, they turned to Food For The Poor for assistance.
In June, South Miami Hospital delivered dozens of packed boxes to the Food For The Poor warehouse in Coconut Creek, Fla. The international relief and development organization then shipped the items to Kingston. From there, the Food For The Poor staff in Jamaica took the donated items to their final destination to the orphanage in Montego Bay. The boxes arrived in time for the Aug. 30 distribution date planned by the five South Miami Hospital employees.
“Food For The Poor is an excellent organization with an excellent reputation for serving and caring for people in the Caribbean. We were very impressed by that and decided we wanted to reach out to your organization to help us with this project,” said Brodie.
“Some of the most basic of items can mean so much to a child living in an orphanage, but more important than these necessary tangible things is for that child to know that someone cares about their well being and is willing to pay them a personal visit,” said Angel Aloma, Executive Director of Food For The Poor.
South Miami Hospital also held a health and wellness event for the children, which included a basic health check-up, games, fun-filled activities and a picnic.
Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor.
For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.
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