Scotiabank donates to Living Hope

Living Hope Preparatory School, which offers a second chance to primary and high school dropouts, relocated to Maskall Street last September after the Atlantic Bank donated a building to them. And today, another bank is providing a major boost to the non-profit organization. Through its Brighter Future initiative, Scotiabank handed over a cheque for twenty thousand dollars for the school’s feeding program. Since Living Hope caters primarily to underprivileged youths, its Manager, Reverend Natalie Bowen, says the funds will go a long way. And according to the banks Vice President and Managing Director, Pat Andrews, there’s more where today’s cheque came from.

Pat Andrews, Vice President/Managing Dir., Scotiabank Belize Ltd.

Pat Andrews

“It’s something that we have been working on for some time and we thought that helping out this school with this feeding program would be something that would help the children as they continue with their education and their furtherance of other social responsibilities.”

Delahnie Bain

“And this is a part of your Bright Future Program; can you speak a bit about that?”

Pat Andrews

“It is. Part of our Scotiabank Bright Future Program. The bank, not only here in Belize but worldwide, we focus on helping areas such as education and social services. And this year we decided to basically focus on this because we know that by touching these children and by inviting them to basically continue to be part of this formal education system, they will prepare themselves for the future. We wanted to do that not only for the young people, but we understand that at nights they are also bringing in at Living Hope some adults that also need to be assisted with education and so on.”

Delahnie Bain

“And as you mentioned, if all goes well, this might just be the first donation.”

Pat Andrews

“It will just be the first donation. We are hoping and expecting that this partnership with Living Hope will be a strong one in year one and if that’s the case then we will also be contributing for the food program for two additional years.”

Delahnie Bain

“And it will be another twenty thousand dollars?”

Pat Andrews

“Another twenty thousand dollars Belize every year so we’re looking at sixty thousand Belize dollars over a three year period.”

Rev. Natalie Bowen, Manager, Living Hope Preparatory School

Natalie Bowen

“I’m just happy because then the children will benefit from the program because they have no reason not to come to school. So the feeding program will mean for them that that one problem that their parents would have, finding that money for them to be fed all through the day; they don’t have to worry about that anymore because we’re going to provide breakfast and lunch so that is amazing.  We had the feeding program before but we had people who promised to help us and they didn’t come through but Scotiabank did so I thank Scotiabank and I thank Mr. Andrews and Ms. Vargas and everybody else who gave to our program because giving to our program means that they are taking kids off the street and into the school and I applaud them.”

Living Hope currently has eighty-four registered students. Reverend Bowen also encourages any young persons who dropped out of school for failing the PSE, behavioral problems or other reasons to visit them on Maskall Street.