Asian Businessmen from Stann Creek Donate 400 Pantries to the City

More donations are pouring in to assist Belize City residents who were affected by Hurricane Lisa. Today, a group of Asian businessmen from Stann Creek delivered four hundred pantries, bags of groceries which include basic food and hygienic supplies, which come in handy as those affected by the recent disaster are still trying to recovery. While help is never too big or small, the Belize City Council welcomed the donation, having already identified those most in need of immediate assistance.

Emilio Zabaneh

Emilio Zabaneh, P.U.P. Chairman, Stann Creek West

“Mister Ben got in touch with me, he is a businessman from my village of Independence and he said Emilio we want to make a donation and we want to help the city to recover. And so his association which is the Taishanese people and the Taishanese Association of Stann Creek came together. They wanted to make a significant contribution in grocery. And so he had suggested maybe three hundred bags and today, they’ve delivered four hundred bags with their President Mister Huang and the Vice President Mister Zhu. So, we are very grateful for their efforts in the south and we are very happy that they could extend that to the city folk.”

Allan Pollard

Allan Pollard, Deputy Mayor, Belize City Council

“It’s never too much. We are very grateful and appreciative of the outpour of donations from all different organizations. Today is just another one of those. We are thankful for the Taishanese group from Dangriga, who came all the way this side; saw the need that a lot of residents are struggling with right now – not only infrastructure-wise, but in terms of basic food supplies that are needed after this storm. So we are very grateful on behalf of the council. Our efforts for cleanup has been continuous, it has been robust. We are almost at, I think, we are at about ninety-five percent finished. The city is almost back to normal, but now it is time to get the households back to that level of normalcy, having food back on the shelves. These donations kinda bridge the gap for us for these families. So we are very appreciative of that and we can’t thank these guys enough and we are glad that they look at Belize City and look at the residents and want to help.”

Reporter

“Let’s talk distribution. How are the bags going to be distributed?”

Allan Pollard

“Well we are responsible for the entire city. For some areas and some distributions that we have done before, we have done those through the area representatives. But this one I think the mayor and the councillors we are going out tomorrow and we are going to try to target some of the areas that from our walkthrough and from our assessments that we identify as the most needy and try to get those people with some of these bags.”