PACT donates $25,000 to Iris victims

Nearly two months after Hurricane Iris laid waste to several communities in the south, victims of the storm continue to receive much need aid from both at home and abroad. Today, the Protected Areas Conservation Trust, PACT, donated twenty-five thousand dollars to the Red Cross Society to assist those affected by Iris. Director General of the Red Cross, Florita Gidwani, this morning accepted the cheque from PACT’s Executive Director Valerie Woods Smith.

Valerie Woods Smith, Executive Dir., PACT

“As you may recall, about a year, a year and a half ago, we gave fifty thousand dollars to the Hurricane Keith effort. And we’ve been giving to the Belize Red Cross, simply because of their track record of accountability and the nation-wide reach that they have. The monies that we give are conservation fee monies for protected areas, where we put money into those areas, but protected areas are only as successful as the people adjacent to them, living in them and using them, so it’s only fitting that we give this back to the community.”

Ann-Marie Williams

“You told me the money was a little less this year because of several reasons. Elaborate for me.”

Valerie Woods

“PACT gets most of its money…about eighty-five percent of it comes from tourists on their departure. Because of the September eleventh attack, and because of Hurricane Iris, as well as some reduction in the cruise passengers prior to those events, we did project a downfall, and we had a downfall actually in our revenue, so we were unable to match the fifty thousand. Not that we project another disaster in the future, but obviously for future disasters, whenever that may be, we’d like to keep a momentum of fifty thousand dollars and upwards.”

The money donated will be used to purchase construction materials.