Community Charity

The Suffield Academy community collectively chooses a charitable organization to recognize and support each year. Nominations are submitted by individual students and a community vote decides which charity will earn Suffield’s annual effort. After tallying the votes, it was announced that Suffield would provide its 2019-2020 support to Hands for Hunger. 

On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck the Abaco Islands as a Category 5 hurricane and then stalled over Grand Bahama Island for two full days. With maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, this is the strongest hurricane on record to ever affect the Bahamas. The damage caused a net loss of over $2 billion with 8,000 students being evacuated from local schools, 61 reported deaths, and another 282 people missing. The storm left at least 70,000 people homeless with an estimated 13,000 homes destroyed.

Hands for Hunger is a humanitarian organization committed to the elimination of unnecessary hunger and reduction of food waste through the creation of meaningful and engaging partnerships formed amongst all sectors of the Bahamian community. They do this by food rescue and distribution, education, and other innovative solutions aimed at achieving national food security. Hands for Hunger’s vision is a transformed Bahamas where everyone has access to three nutritious and fortifying meals each day. 

The money Suffield raised helped supply hurricane Dorian victims with healthy and nutritious meals. It costs $1.00 to provide one meal and each week Hands for Hunger sends two refrigerated trucks to collect and distribute an average of 4,531 pounds of food to people in need. They also collect unspoiled foods from local businesses and cruise ships to distribute throughout the community. To date, Hands for Hunger has rescued more than 1,000,000 pounds of fresh, surplus food and provided the equivalent number of meals to Bahamians in need.