This afternoon Scotia Bank handed out checks to 65 primary school students. 20 of those checks were picked up at the bank’s main branch on Albert Street. The checks were for about three to four hundred dollars each and are education grants to help the students and their parents pay fees and buy books for the upcoming school year. The money is from the Scotia Bank Education Fund –which was originally an initiative of the bank of nova Scotia but it is now a commitment of Scotia staff – who held bake sales and barbecues to raise the funds.
Josie Andrews, Scotia Bank
“We sent out application forms to different schools around the whole area of the Belize City district and each school went ahead and proposed it to the children there and spoke to the parents and encouraged them to go ahead if they have the financial need to apply for the program and then they were sent back here around mid-June in which all the staff got together, they formed their own little committee and went through them and made the selection from there.”
Pat Andrews, Managing Director – Scotia Bank
“This is something we decided to do because we believe that anything that we want to do with the public, we want to start off with the youths of Belize and we have lots of hope that the youths will be the future of this country so we decided that we wanted to give scholarships to the youths.”
Cecil Arnold, Senior manager of branch banking
“The employees, we did barbecue sales, bake sales, to raffles, walkathons and various events that they at the branches in the various districts. They feel that they are contributing and so they get involved and I think it gives them some added benefit to know that they are contributing to a worthy cause and that is to help the young primary school kids of this country.”
Josie Andrews,
“The important thing here is that we are looking out for the best interest of the children and the youth of Belize. We do take that responsibility very seriously and we are very happy to be able to assist these children today.”
Sarah Hobbs, Senior manager – business support
“In addition to the education program that we do, which is one of our key programs in terms of corporate responsibility, we are also getting ready to launch another program that’s called the Scotia Bright Future Program that’s also going to be targeted at partnering with local NGOs to sponsor key projects that help our youth and children in Belize.”
This is the third year of the program. The bank’s other branches will similarly hand out checks. Later this month when Scotia opens its Spanish Lookout branch 2 students from the surrounding area will be awarded grants.
