When the new school year starts in September students in the Belize Rural North should have healthy meals to eat and not have to go hungry while in school. Area Rep. Edmund Clear the Land Castro will be paving the way for it with a fundraising one hundred mile ride-a-thon. But he’s not doing it alone; students will participate in the first fifteen mile stage of the ride which starts at six tomorrow morning. According to Castro the objective is to get enough support so that instead of helping individual children there will be feeding programmes for all primary and secondary students attending classes in Belize Rural North.
Hon. Edmund Castro, Belize Rural North Area Rep.
“For a long time now I wanted to assist in a massive way the feeding program in our division rather than just trying to help an individual, one or two schools. So what I have been doing over the past year since the Ride Across Belize is to work out, losing some weight at the same time, being physically healthy and also encouraging the students to participate so they can look at a healthy lifestyle, at a better diet, and to ensure that we can feed all the children in Belize Rural North by at least guaranteeing the 2,226 students one solid meal.
We have 17 primary schools and we have two high schools in the area so we are looking at participation from just about all the schools in the area. So we are looking at well over a 100 students that will be participating in the ride from basically in front of Leslie’s to the Hattieville Roundabout where the buses or the pickups and trucks or the service vehicles will pick them up and take them back to their respective village or schools. While the rest of the cycling pelathon, myself and some of my friends, cyclists, will continue the journey to Belmopan with a short break and then we will return with a nice finish at the BTL Park on the Marine Parade where we will have some more refreshments and some more snacks and give thanks to all those that supported us.
We are not necessarily looking for money or cash. We would like the commitment from a family or a business to say we will donate one bag of rice, maybe 100 pounds of rice once a week or once a month or once every three months. The fact is that collectively if we can do that together, then we can ensure that all the students in Belize Rural North will not have to worry about where the next meal will come from but concentrate solely on learning and we will see even better PSE results and better CXC results coming out of the Belize Rural North area.”
The feeding programmes are scheduled to begin in September 2009 and run until June 2010. If you would like to assist you call cell phone numbers 670-2393, 601-0790 and 610-4834.