By EARYEL BOWLEG

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE Salvation Army have experienced a ten percent decrease in donations this Christmas season.

Divisional Commander Major Clarence Ingram explained to The Tribune this week that the decrease in the charity’s Christmas kettle campaign was due to “so much demand for the donation dollar” after Hurricane Dorian. “People have been giving and giving and giving since the 1st of September,” Mr Ingram said. “You know it’s a challenge. There’s only so much to give that people can give, right? So I think at this particular time you know people are very much stretched financially and they’re doing the best they can.”

Money collected from the campaign provides funding for programmes and events throughout the year which includes providing food for families and individuals and toiletries for the elderly and institutionalised.

Mr Ingram said the charity is doing “10 times as much” compared to last year. Since Hurricane Dorian made landfall, the Salvation Army has received locally and internationally 2,000 pallets of materials worth an estimated $6 million. The supplies were distributed to the Family Islands and to evacuees in Nassau and now the organisation is completely out of those donated goods.

He added: “We have been so busy during Hurricane Dorian. We have been initially, of course, providing food, water, clothing—those types of things and then as the effort has moved from response to recovery we have extended that to provide the other necessities and to help people start to get back on their feet a little bit and get their homes back in order a little bit.

“I really don’t have a number on what we’ve received financially for the Hurricane Dorian efforts right available to me but you know it has been a very significant amount which we’ve largely had to put into transportation and purchasing food and to get all of the materials we’ve received out to the people.

“So when you’re trying to move 2,000 pallets or maybe $6 million worth stuff—you can’t do it for free and so some of the donations had to go to what we call logistics. The transportation and storage and all those things.”

The Salvation Army will still be providing food and water to evacuees in the capital into the new year. The public is welcome to donate online at http://salvationarmybahamas.org