BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — People in three Caribbean islands affected by the Christmas Eve weather system that caused significant flood and landslide damage will receive some additional assistance courtesy of CIBC FirstCaribbean.
The bank has donated EC$200,000 to the relief effort in St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines and Dominica. The funds were donated through the bank’s ComTrust Foundation.
St Vincent, the hardest hit of the three islands, will receive the lion’s share of the funds — EC$100,000. It will be distributed among a number of projects:
* $10,000 has been earmarked for school supplies for children.
* $25,000 will go to Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.
* $45,000 is to be contributed to the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) for food items and toiletries, as well as to cover the cost of transportation of items from NEMO to shelters across the island; and
* $20,000 will be used by the Bank’s St Vincent management team through its sports and social activities committee in a staff outreach within the various communities.
St Lucia, meanwhile, will receive EC $50,000 for relief efforts there. The sum will be divided equally between NEMO and the Red Cross, which will use some of the funds to replace some of the goods lost when one of its storehouses was razed in a fire shortly after the flooding.
In Dominica, EC $50,000 will be donated to the Red Cross, which has been collaborating with the Office of Disaster Management and Local Government department to provide basic relief items to 48 households affected by the event.
Chief Executive Officer Rik Parkhill, who is also chairman of the ComTrust Foundation, noted: “The foundation’s mandate is to assist communities in need in the Caribbean, so we have a history of providing assistance when countries in which we operate are affected by disaster. While we are happy that our employees in these three countries emerged relatively unscathed, we were extremely saddened to hear that there was loss of life as a result of this weather event.
“We hope that our donation to the relief efforts in the three countries will assist in providing some comfort to those people who were affected and who will take some time to fully recover from this disaster.”
Managing director of retail banking Mark St Hill, who is also a trustee of the foundation, echoed the CEO’s views.
He added: “It’s part of our duty as a leading corporate citizen in the Caribbean to make our contribution when events like this take place. While our staff did not suffer any major displacement, given the small size of our communities, there’s a good chance many of them may know someone who was affected, so we feel compelled to help on behalf of our people across the region.”
Through the CIBC FirstCaribbean ComTrust Foundation, which was established in 2003 to manage the bank’s corporate social responsibility programmes across the region, CIBC has contributed nearly US$16m to worthwhile projects.
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CIBC to the rescue
