Island luau to support hungry kids

With a growing need to offer support for schoolchildren in the Cayman Islands who don’t have enough to eat, the Feed our Future charity will host its second annual Pig Roast on 6 October. 

Last year, the charity organisation funded about 20,000 lunches for 120 primary and secondary schoolchildren who did not have enough to eat. However, the organisation’s chairwoman, Stacey VanDevelde, said the organisation wasn’t able to help all of the children in need last year. 

“Per our budget ,we set out to support 100 [children] and were successful in growing to 120,” she said. “We got to a point where we advised schools to a) prioritise or narrow down the referrals to the extent they could, which is tough to do when they all need help; and b) decline support due to capacity.” 

Mrs. VanDevelde said that Feed our Future is going through its re-enrolment process for this school year and that need has increased. 

“A lot of families are struggling to make ends meet,” she said. “Further, the Department of Children and Family Services faces budget constraints/cuts each year, and those in need of poor relief or help from the government has increased in recent years for a number of reasons, in particular the economic climate.” 

In addition, Mrs. VanDevelde said some families will not even go to the Department of Children and Family Services to ask for assistance because of pride “or perhaps a false belief that they can provide for their family, when in reality they need help and the child – or children – is being neglected.” 

For the most part, Feed our Future works directly with the schools to identify children in need and in many cases a representative of the group approaches the parent/caretaker to discuss the reason the child comes to school hungry with no access to food, VanDevelde said. 

In addition to providing school lunches, Feed our Future also provides healthy snacks to two Behaviour Intervention Units within the government high schools and to school counsellors when it had an excess inventory of donated products on hand. 

“We aim to maintain a similar level of service at a minimum – up to 120 children supported,” Mrs. VanDevelde said. “However, in doing so we would like to develop relationships with schools we did not work with last year. We are currently working to expand our programme to the Sister Islands – Cayman Brac schools – and have a generous donor group that is backing that work. We continue to work closely with the Child Health Task Force to advocate for healthy meals and snacks to be served in the schools – per the school nutritional standards – and we are pushing to play a more integral part in that from an inspection and support to the school standpoint.” 

Feed our Future has begun its second year and has now attained a United States Section 80 tax exemption status allowing American-based companies to make tax deductible donations to the organisation. In addition to several major corporate sponsors, Feed our Future gained support from several other sources, including the Aall Foundation, the Flowers Sea Swim and Hedge Funds Care, Mrs. VanDevelde said. 

“We have had many children supporters who accept donations for us in lieu of gifts at their birthday celebrations,” she said. “What a wonderful gesture.” 

This year’s pig roast event will have a couple of twists, with Chef Anthony Lawson – a Feed our Future board member – having some competition.  

“This year … we are having a challenge in that Chef Anthony and a challenger will compete as to whose roast of pig is supreme,” she said. “The guests will decide.”  

This year’s event, which will once again take place on the Camana Bay Beach just north of the Royal Palms, will have an “Island Luau” theme. 

“We thought the luau theme would help to attract guests who are after a fun, casual, but classy event,” he said. “No shoes required.” 

Live music will be played by Bonafide and the Swanky Rum Bar will be featured once again. 

Several local restaurants support the event by providing products or services, including Aqua, Cimboco, Ortanique, Michael’s Genuine, Abacus, Prime, Luca and Frosted Robin. 

Last year, 100 per cent of the proceeds from the event went to providing school lunches. Mrs. VanDevelde said the goal was the same this year. 

“We expect to be similarly successful through our generous sponsors and volunteers in getting many goods and services donated or discounted,” she said.  

Tickets for the event are CI$125 in advance or CI$150 at the gate. The entry price includes all food and drinks. For more information e-mail [email protected]