It's been over 3 months since we served our first meal! Can you believe it?
On April 7th the very first Soup Kitchen meal was served. 47 meals were prepared that day. The next day we prepared 114 meals, and the following days the numbers quickly rose to the 300+ meals that we still serve nowadays.
It really has been an amazing three months. We've learned many things about each other and our community. We've felt humbled, blessed, stressed at times and beaten down, excited and grateful. But mostly we've felt honored that in the midst of this time of difficulty and struggle, we've been able to witness the BEST in humanity.
Support has come from near and far, from expected and unexpected corners. But most of all, this amazing little island is overcoming difficulties through a sense of community and collaboration. A little speck of light during hard times. And to all those who have helped in any way, we want to say THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts.
- WHAT IS THE CURRENT SITUATION -
We continue to do what we've been doing, providing meals for 300+ people. The situation on Caye Caulker remains difficult. Fortunately, some can find a bit of work here and there. People are getting inventive, creative and are doing the absolute best they can. But on an island where 90% of jobs were in tourism, and in a country that has one of the highest ratios of tourism as a percentage of GDP in the world, things simply don't change overnight.
At the moment many are struggling to catch up on bills from the last 3 months, which is not easy even when finding a bit of work. Bills continue to come in, rent is due, and children are going back to school next month; everything costs money. So, the least that we can do is take one worry away and continue to provide one of life's basic needs: Food.
The Soup Kitchen has been a well-oiled machine for months. We continue to keep detailed logs of our daily number of meal pick-ups, every penny coming in or going out is accounted for, our costs are broken down per category, we keep a close eye on the fluctuation of our per-meal-cost (which is still lower than projected), etc. Analyzing these numbers makes us operate even more efficiently and allows us to strech our dollar the best we can.
- AND WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE? -
Though our initial goal was set to run our program for three months, our current finances will allow us to continue this project until mid/late September (due to careful planning and stretching our dollar). Though we trust in the ability and creativity of the islanders to find their way, we know that right now the need is still there.
As we said before, economies don't change overnight, jobs don't appear out of thin air, but people do need to catch up on their bills while savings are running out. We trust that at some point tourism will return and/or people will find other ways to earn a living, but in the meantime, we will do our absolute best to continue to provide support.
We will also continue to monitor the situation on the Caye closely, and if we see that the situation as a whole is improving, we will start to scale back our program.
- ARE YOU STILL LOOKING FOR DONATIONS? -
Yes, donations are always welcome. Though we have reached our GoFundMe goal, all additional donations will allow us to assist more islanders and/or prolong our program. All funds coming into this island right now are stimulating the island economy. We carefully consider our buying sources and try to stimulate the local economy on the Caye whenever we can.
If you are thinking about contributing, we will be forever grateful You may do so via this link:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/caye-caulker-soup-kitchen-for-covid19-relief
Ambergris Caye 
AmbergrisCaye.com