Dear Friends of the Coco Point Fund,
We know many of you would like an update on how things are going on Barbuda. Progress is being made on many fronts. During 2018 the Coco Point Fund rebuilt the Cody Kelly Preschool and the Daycare building, shipped thirteen 40 foot containers of building materials (mainly roofing material, doors and windows). We also funded a commitment to significantly improve the curriculum at the Preschool, which should be in place by February 2019. Year to date, the Fund received approximately $500,000 in donations and spent approximately $800,000 in direct aid on Barbuda. In addition, we continued funding our academic scholarship program through 2021.
There are a lot more details we could report on, but we will leave those for our soon to be revamped website, which we expect to have up and running in early January. We will send out an announcement and a link as soon as it is live.
In summary, I’m proud to report that the Coco Point fund board continues to steward your generous donations very effectively. We have stayed true to our commitment to provide 100% direct aid, with no funds being channeled through governmental agencies. That said, we need a lot more money if we are going to finish the job we started. We are working with a few other charitable funds over the next year to rebuild 80 homes which were totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair. We are also working on building in open air market, a new bank facility in Codrington and
possibly jump starting one or more new business ventures on Barbuda. We estimate the collective needs to exceed $4 million. We hope to provide at least $1 million of that aid over the next couple of years.
On behalf of our board, and the Barbudan people, I thank you again for your generous support, wish you a very happy holiday season and ask you again for your continued generous support so we together can help make the New Year happy and bright for all our good friends on Barbuda!
Sincerely,
Michael Smith
