Correne Dummett tells a story of a little girl who benefits from her church’s school feeding programme and it is shocking to hear in a country regularly trumpeted as one of the richest in the world.

“A guy was delivering the lunches and the breakfasts to the children and he said to the one little girl: ‘How do you like the meals that we are getting and are they enough?’. She said: ‘Oh yes, I get plenty. I take some home for supper’. There was no supper at home. That’s why we try to put little extra stuff in there for them.”

Mrs. Dummett, 68, community service director at Southampton Seventh Day Adventist Church, leads a team of four volunteers who produce close to 250 meals a week for 30 children at four primary schools and one pre-school across the Island.

Working mothers and grandmothers, they give up their own free time - and often their own money too - to make sure that children not given enough to eat at home don’t go hungry.

The African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” is quoted a lot in Bermuda but these women actually live and breathe that belief.

They do what they do because they believe there are significant numbers of children not getting the sustenance they need to get through the school day. The women don’t think that’s because of wilful neglect or laziness on the part of parents. Mrs. Dummett shakes her head at the suggestion. She says school guidance counsellors assess the number of needy youngsters and tell a familiar story in every case.

“It’s always that they are single parents and some of them have to make the decision between food and a roof over their heads,” she says.

“Bermudians are very, very proud and they don’t like to ask for anything so when they are willing to accept meals for their children it’s because they really, really don’t have the means to provide the meals themselves.”

Her team, for all they feel duty bound to help those in trouble in their community, agree that Government should be funding and co-ordinating a programme such as theirs in every school that needs it on the Island.

“We are just doing it because the Government doesn’t but we feel it should be the Government’s responsibility,” says Mrs. Dummett, who launched the programme four years ago.

Each week she spends three hours trawling wholesalers and supermarkets to gather items needed for meals for four of the schools. She keeps the receipts and her church reimburses her but like the rest of the women she often uses her own cash to buy extra items.

Along with Juliette Bean, 67, and Noreen Raynor, 63, she takes it in turn to prepare and deliver food packages to three of the schools and the meals are dished out by guidance counsellors.

Mother-of-two and grandmother-of-three Mrs. Bean says she was shocked to learn there were youngsters in her neighbourhood going without food. “It’s heartbreaking,” she says. “I just feel so heartbroken but I’m glad I can do it.”

Carol Burgess, a mother-of-one and grandmother-of two, prepares and delivers food to a school in the west end every weekday as there are no other volunteers in her area. The full-time geriatric nurse aide explains how she makes the lunch sandwiches after finishing her midnight to 8 a.m. shift at Packwood Home in Somerset.

“The other morning I said: ‘I’m going to time myself’,” laughs the 60-year-old. “But I never did it. I don’t have the time. It’s not easy but it’s okay. I feel that there’s a need and the children shouldn’t have to suffer. Everybody needs nourishment.”

She adds: “One day I gave them cornbread. It’s something special, a treat.”

Betty O’Connor, 68, couldn’t agree more. She collects produce for ten children at a school on the opposite side of the Island and makes hot food including eggs and pancakes some mornings. “Two teachers are there and they feed them,” she says, explaining how someone in her church volunteered her for the project. “I didn’t mind,” she says. “I said it was not a problem.”

Mrs. O’Connor, a mother-of-six, grandmother-of-11 and great grandmother-of-two, is thankful to those businesses and individuals in her community who give items for free. Dunkley’s Dairy donates three-and-a-half gallons of milk a week for her school and smaller stores also help out.

She says that if more firms could give assistance or offer a discount it would be a big boost. Mrs. Dummett adds: “If they are not going to have their name advertised they don’t seem that keen.”

Mrs. Dummett thinks there are many hungry children falling under the radar of school counsellors and many cash-strapped parents reluctant to accept help.

Each year there are always more youngsters needing meals than she has budgeted for. But the women raise the extra funds with charity events including afternoon teas and bake sales. “We always end up with more children than we started out with but there has never been a time when we haven’t had the money,” says Mrs. Dummett. “We always get it somehow. But we can’t reach everybody.”

Bermuda Nurses’ Foundation is now raising money for the scheme and Mrs. Dummett hopes enough will be collected for it to be extended to other schools. “I would make a proposal to the Government and say: ‘here, this is so much money to start a school breakfast programme and we’ll keep supporting you but we feel it’s something that you should run yourselves’.”

The women nod vigorously when asked if they are motivated because they have children and grandchildren themselves and would hate to see them go hungry.

Mrs. Burgess says: “That’s the truth. And it’s children of both colours who need our help. Race doesn’t matter.”

“It’s a blessing,” adds mother-of-two and grandmother-of-two Mrs. Raynor. “When we see the children and know we are helping somebody it’s a good feeling. We are just showing love.”

* Are you a business owner who could regularly donate produce such as milk, juice and cereal for the feeding programme? Email Sam Strangeways at The Royal Gazette at sstrangeways[AT]royalgazette.bm.