St. Maarten is our winter home and we have spent a good part of our winter season using this beautiful location as our home base as we visit other islands. We have become personal friends with many of the locals who make our winter visit more enjoyable.
However with the arrival of Hurricane Irma this past week everything changed for the people living on the island of St. Maarten, BVI and surrounding northernmost Leeward Islands.
These people, our friends, have not just lost their homes -- they have lost their jobs. Until tourists can visit again, they do not have an income. Think about that. No home, no income after a long underemployed summer and now looking at losing the income associated with the essential winter tourist season.
To help our friends, you can make a contribution here.
Even scarier, we have not been able to contact many of our friends in St. Maarten and we have no way of delivering to them what they need this minute (water, electricity and food).
But we want to be ready when the need has been identified and we will collect money on their behalf. Each donor will be informed how their contributions will be used. We have a Board of Trustees being established for the Mooring Field Foundation and I will ask them for financial oversight. We will keep track of every donor and every penny. In fact we plan to collect e-mail addresses from contributors as we do not see this as a onetime fix, but perhaps a long recovery.
We are not just asking OPO members to dig deep and help. We are reaching out to others at the Newport and Annapolis Boat Show. In Texas and Florida, our people have resources of local and Federal Governments, rule of law and wealth beyond the grasp of many people living in the Caribbean.
If you feel lucky and blessed, won’t you please donate? OPO is donating $5,000 split equally between the Mooring Field and the St. Maarten Relief Effort.
