The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) is do­nat­ing 1,000 loaves of bread to To­ba­go fam­i­lies every week as part of its Loaves of Love ini­tia­tive and it is hop­ing to soon in­crease the de­liv­ery.

One of the par­ty’s deputy lead­ers, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, ex­plained the ini­tia­tive on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew.

He told host Soyi­ni Grey it start­ed a few days ago to help feed peo­ple who lost jobs and sub­stan­tial por­tions of their in­comes be­cause of COVID-19.

He said bread is a sta­ple in most To­ba­go house­holds, but many peo­ple could not af­ford it any­more.

“We have found that sev­er­al of our fam­i­lies are falling on their luck. Many of us take for grant­ed sim­ple things we still have ac­cess to with­out re­al­is­ing many of our neigh­bours don’t have ac­cess to them. A loaf of bread is the sim­plest thing we can add to our ex­ist­ing ham­pers,” Au­gus­tine said.

He re­mind­ed that the tourism sec­tor, which is the sec­ond largest em­ploy­er in To­ba­go, took a beat­ing since March 2020 when the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al bor­der closed, lead­ing to thou­sands of work­ers be­ing laid off.

Au­gus­tine added that do­mes­tic trav­el is al­so down to a min­i­mum as on­ly es­sen­tial trav­el is per­mit­ted.

“Be­fore 2020, tourism was al­ready on the de­cline in To­ba­go by some 11 per cent...then COVID came,” Au­gus­tine said.

The PDP’s area rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Par­latu­vi­er, L’Anse Four­mi, and Spey­side said in his dis­trict, work­ers from Blue Wa­ters Inn, Jem­ma’s Tree­house Restau­rant, and oth­er tourism-type es­tab­lish­ments are at home, with­out in­comes.

He said the PDP is seek­ing to in­crease its de­liv­ery to more than 1,000 loaves per week. This de­ci­sion came af­ter as­sess­ing the needs of To­ba­go res­i­dents.

Asked how the par­ty is fund­ing the ini­tia­tive, Au­gus­tine said it’s a com­mu­ni­ty ef­fort fu­eled by cor­po­rate and or­di­nary cit­i­zens do­nat­ing funds, time, and labour.

“It’s all do­na­tions. We seek to get the do­na­tions a week ahead. Peo­ple and busi­ness­es have been go­ing to su­per­mar­kets around the is­land and pay­ing for the items, and we pick them up. Bak­ers are do­nat­ing their ser­vices for free, once per day.”

He said more do­na­tions are need­ed to keep the ef­fort go­ing.

To get in­volved in the Loaves of Love ini­tia­tive, peo­ple can call 752-3463, Au­gus­tine said.