Thanks to a generous donation by Lifeline Foundation, hundreds of school children and young special athletes will benefit from the thirty two thousand dollars handed over today to the boys and girls respective schools and organization. In a short ceremony, St. Stephen’s Primary School in Monkey River Village received seven thousand dollars, Special Olympics Belize got ten thousand dollars while the biggest share of funds a total of fifteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety eight dollars went to the living hope preparatory school. In her presentation to the gathering Lifeline Foundation’s Executive Director Kim Simplis-Barrow stated that once again the organizations ongoing commitment to help children in need has again become a reality. 7News also spoke with two of the lucky recipients.
Kim Simplis-Barrow, Executive Director - Lifeline Foundation
“It is the youth who is not in school that seeks membership in the gangs. It is the youth that cannot earn a living because of the lack of education that turns to jacking and shooting and murder. It is in that context that Lifeline’s special focus on schools and with the support of our sponsors become ever more important. It is also very important that we as a society look at organizations that are filling the gap.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
How does your school plan to use the money?
Natalie Bowen, Principal - Living Hope Preparatory School
“Living Preparatory School is very thankful to the Lifeline Foundation for the funds they are giving to us. These funds will be used for the computer lab and we will be purchasing about six computers and two printers which will be used to train the children who are slow learners. The computers are used as an assisted process to the reading program which will help them to learn to read. And also for those who are in the second year, they will be using the computers as a resource center where they can do their research paper and they can use it for homework.”
Alan Auil, Chairman - Special Olympics Belize
“We have a national game on Saturday in Orange Walk at the People’s Stadium and it will be used towards the expenses for that game. It is quite expensive because we will bringing athletes from around the country. The ones coming from south will have to spend the overnight on Friday in Belize City. We will have to be bussing everyone into Orange Walk, we will have about 170 athletes, 150 volunteers, we will go into team sports now, we will introduce basketball along with the traditional track and field events that we have done in the past and we will have to feed all of them on that day, breakfast and lunch, and the ones going back to Punta Gorda, they will need to get dinner as well. It will be quite expensive and the $10,000 we received from Lifeline comes in handy because it will be used towards these national games.”
The funds donated are proceeds from Lifeline Foundation’s fourth annual Black and White Charity Gala which was held to raise money to support needy children in Belize.
