HAPPY EARTH DAY!! Cedar Grove Primary School students pose in front of their new garden with the Sandals Foundation’s Green Team.

The Sandals Foundation – the philanthropic arm of Sandals Resorts International – commemorated Earth Day 2012 by mobilizing a team of 300 Sandals staff, guests and students to sow vegetables and herbs at six schools in the Caribbean, as well as coordinate sustainable activities to preserve natural surroundings in Jamaica, St. Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda. Earth Day is observed worldwide on April 22.

On April 19, team members from Sandals, Beaches and Grand Pineapple Resorts in the Caribbean planted vegetable gardens to benefit more than 2,500 students through school feeding programmes at Enid Capron Primary in the Turks and Caicos Islands; the Bahamas AIDS Foundation and Rokers Point Primary School in the Bahamas and Culloden Early Childhood Institute, Mount Airy All-Age School and Albion Primary and Junior High in Jamaica.
 
On April 23, a Sandals Foundation Green Team of 12 in Antigua went to Cedar Grove Primary School and planted 30 vitex trees with the help of 40 eager students.  The staff and students are thrilled that they can now tend to their new garden. “I am so happy the Foundation took the initiative to not only to engage in a treeplanting activity, but also to teach our students the basic elements of planting while helping them understand the importance of environmental preservation,” said Marilyn James, Principal of Cedar Grove Primary. Meanwhile, another Sandals Foundation Team took 21 students from Pares Secondary School to the Powell’s recycling plant and the Cooks sanitary landfill. This effort was spearheaded by Grand Pineapple Resort’s Environment Health and Safety Manager Khadijah Abdulwudud and she was delighted by the response of the students and staff. “Earth Day teaches students to be pro-active in their everyday lives and they learn to appreciate that their behavior impacts the environment directly,” commented Abdulwudud. As part of the Earth Day festivities, she has also organized a recycling competition between Pares Primary School and Willikies Primary School. The winners will be announced in the near future.