It's been 11 days since the New Minister of Human Development, Dolores Balderamos Garcia announced a suspension and a re-branding of the food pantry program.
But the new government's version of the program which as we've reported is now named "grocery bag" remains on pause.
It's an issue that Cherisse Halsall took a deeper dive into today - and she found that pantry was popular to those receiving it, but viewed with suspicious and distrust by man - and for good reason! Here's why the pantry is on pause, what it means to recipients, and where it all started:
Hon. Dolores Balderamos-Garcia
"It'll be a couple of days dear, let me assure you. It's not going to be 2-3 weeks or a month - Christmas di come, so we will do our best, but realizing of course that we are in difficult times, so work with us on that noh."
But that was almost 2 weeks ago and today the Minister told Channel 7 via text that a decision about the re-opening of "Grocery Bag" would be, quote, "Sorted out soon".
We tried to speak to a few of the Belizeans who'll have to survive the weekend while waiting on their next grocery bag. And to do so we reached out via facebook post. A post that was not universally loved. The comments ranged from the entertained to the Political, to the downright HOSTILE.
We even got screenshots of the pantry recipient lists. One listing "Jhgvm Hfnk" and "Hgvm Cab" as pantry recipients, and another indicating that Mickey and Minnie Mouse remain in line for their rice and beans and whole chicken. All these food pantry phantoms explain why the program has been taken temporarily offline for repairs.
But moving on from the cartoonish to real-life our post did allow us to speak to one single mother affected by this pause in the grocery bag.
She'd been on the Covid food assistance program but says that while she'd been guaranteed five weeks of grocery bags she only got one. She preferred to remain anonymous.
Voice of: Single Mother previously on Food Assistance program
"One day I got a call and said that I can go to such a place and get a pantry and from then the lady said that I would constantly get at least like five times but one day I called back and I asked the person, the person told me that my name had already in the computer stage well in the system said that I had already received all the pantries that I was supposed to get and it was like only one time they gave me help."
"Right now I'm just like on the down like hustling like how I have a machine and some people like how its been raining people are helping me by giving me a little helping hand or giving me their clothes so I can wash and they gave me a little bit of money and that's how I'm struggling right now. I'm renting at the same time and sometimes my babies father's they help me, sometimes no, right now it's a bit kind of struggling but thank god sometimes, well sometimes we don't have to eat or nothing but we are struggling the same way. It's been a difficult time and not only me, a good amount of people have the same problem."
"All I can say is they at least just try to move faster or say whether or not if they are going to help people or not because like how I said not only me or I cannot say that only me needs help. Everybody right now needs a helping hand."
Sources tell us that the grocery bag program is on the agenda to be discussed at Cabinet next week. Cop to November 11th, there were 45 thousand names on the list of recipients food pantry and the COVID 19 food assistance programme.
