By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE government will step in to assist the Ranfurly Home in an effort to ensure the subsidised orphanage can remain open, Minister of Social Services Melanie Griffin said yesterday.

Mrs Griffin said that although the financially-challenged children’s home is a private facility, there are plans to engage its management to assess needs.

“The organisation is a private facility but the government would not wish to see it close so we will engage them to see how we can best assist them,” she said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the official naming ceremony of the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs as the Paul L Adderley building yesterday, Mrs Griffin said: “There are two sets of facilities. There are the government-owned facilities that are managed by mostly church organisations, and then there are the private institutions. All are subsidised by the government and wherever the government can assist it will. So we will be engaging the management and the president to see how we might be able to assist.”

Yesterday The Tribune reported Ranfurly Home President Alexandra Maillis Lynch saying the orphanage had $37,000 in its bank account and may have to close its doors after nearly 60 years. Mrs Lynch said the home, which costs about $20,000 a month to run, needed to raise $400,000 to keep the orphanage open.

The Ranfurly Home has been a safe haven for thousands of Bahamian children since 1956, providing shelter and a new life for those who have been orphaned, abused, neglected or abandoned. 

Today it is caring for 24 children between the ages of five and 19, who have been placed there by the Department of Social Services. Anyone wishing to make a donation can contact the home at 393-3115 or 557-3557.