 The Rotary Club of St. Lucia collaborates with the Seeds International Program to aid those in need. Hermadi Mark has that story. The Rotary Club of St. Lucia has collaborated with the Seeds International Program. The program aims to alleviate hunger by providing vegetable seeds to persons most in need around the world and especially in small island developing states. The Rotary Club made an application to Seeds International and was successful in receiving 1,500 packets of vegetable seeds. The president of the St. Lucia Rotary Club, Lehthan Khan, says the strategy of the St. Lucia Rotary Club this year is to collaborate with organizations locally and internationally to continue their charitable work in St. Lucia. At a time like this, when the world is facing a number of different crises, we have a health crisis, we have climate change, we have the possibility of military and economic conflicts and political conflicts that could seriously disrupt the food chain supply. And this is why Seeds International is pushing this program to help individuals in smaller territories at St. Lucia to find a way to produce their own food. So it's like a first step towards self-sufficiency at the individual domestic level. And so Rotary is very happy and delighted to partner with such a prestigious organization who is seeking to do good in the world. At a small presentation ceremony, the seeds were distributed to organizations with existing farming programs to grow and produce with the intention of distributing the grown produce to persons in need. The Uptan Girls Garden Center was a recipient. Deputy Director Olympia Vitalis accepted the seed donation on behalf of the center. At Uptan Gardens, we do have an agricultural program that have been operating for the past 41 years. And so this contribution is going to go very well with what we do. We provide food for our girls. We cater to girls between the ages of 12 to 18, and we encourage them to be able to develop that level of subsistency living that we speak of. So this initiative is really going to go a long way in helping them provide for themselves at the center, as well as their families. So again, I want to thank you for having us receive this gift. As they say, caring and sharing, so we appreciate your care. Wang Sonson, Director of the Boys Training Center, BTC, receiving the donation on behalf of the center says the BTC currently has a hydroponics and aquaponics agricultural program. During the last year, when COVID really came onto the island on the lockdown, we saw that a number of our boys, apart from these programs, they too started their own farms. So a number of them today is harvesting day for some of them. Some of them have Chinese cabbage and whatnot. So this will go a long way. And I must say that we have all come to realize how important food is to us as a nation, and it is good that we can help the young people to continue to live that legacy moving forward. So once again, I thank you and your seeds will go a long way towards our programs at the Boys Training Center. The other recipients include the Sarfalos Community College, National Skills Development Center, Cassie's Comprehensive Secondary School, St. Mary's College, and the Rotary Club of Grosly. The organizations are expected to prepare a summary report on the successes and challenges during the planting process, as well as include photos of crops to be sent to the seeds international program for accountability purposes. From the Government Information Service, I'm Hermitie Mark reporting.