Challenging year for HIV Food Bank

The year 2019 has been a challenging year for the Barbados HIV Food Bank.

The non-profit organisation which seeks to educate and support persons within the community that are living with HIV is reporting an increase in clients, but not as many donations coming in.

Word of this came from Food Bank Manager, Stacia Whittaker on the sidelines of a timely donation of food items from the Kiwanis Club of Barbados North.

“Our donors have been a bit down this year, but we want to acknowledge those who continue to stick with us. Having donations down you would imagine that it was a bit trying to meet the needs of all our clients that were referred to us, and that continue to lean on us for nutrition support…We have seen a bit of an increase in clients seeking food assistance and as you would imagine trying to balance more referrals, not enough donations, it was very challenging this year to continue to do what we are doing,” she told members of the media, appealing to the public to support their efforts to provide food assistance to persons living with HIV.

“It goes not only to those infected, but it also assists those affected.”

Having to work with less donations, Whittaker admits to having to “stretch to make up the hampers.”

“Yes, in some cases our hampers don’t have the variety as well. We have seen our hampers being a little bit smaller, with less variety than previous years.”

Moreover, the Food Bank Manager said the aim has been to provide healthy food options to ensure that clients receive a well-balanced diet.

She is therefore encouraging the public to consider to think wholesome foods when making their donations, further explaining, “We try to provide more modified food hampers because we are also seeing clients who are not only diagnosed with HIV, but there are diagnosed with Non- Communicable Diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure. So, trying to get that variety in our food hampers has been a challenge.”

“We even try to have more ground provisions, fresh fruits, vegetables at least for those individuals who are able to store those items, because we are still dealing with some clients that may not have the facility to store those produce… We removed corn beef off our pantry list and we educated persons to why we took if off and we try to replace that with more wholesome options,” Whittaker added. (TL)