Huggins launches ‘Every Dollar Counts’ campaign

No matter one’s age or occupation, all Vincentians are being called on to contribute to the building of the international airport in the “Every Dollar Counts” campaign.{{more}}

“Drop ah dollar” is just one aspect of the campaign, and is based the “save-all” concept. Persons are encouraged to “throw in” whatever money they can, whether a large or small sum.

Fitzgerald Huggins, organizer of the campaign, told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday that although the campaign has not been officially launched, it is already in the public domain, and is being well received.

“There will be a formal launch, but because there was such a positive response, we just rolled it out to the people rather than hold it back…we started in South Rivers on Sunday at the cricket match,” Huggins said.

Huggins explained that the idea for a campaign came from listening to persons calling in on radio programmes and asking how they could donate to the international airport project.

“When you listen to the people, you realize that these are poor people, but they still want to be involved and take ownership of the project in some small way or the other,” he said.

The former LIME marketing manager also stressed that the campaign was about giving the public ownership of the project and letting them know that every dollar counts.

“It is people driven, rather than driven by a committee,” he stated.

The campaign seems to have gone global, as according to Huggins, an individual who lives abroad has donated EC$500 and has promised to donate that amount for every month that the campaign is running.

“We want to see if we can reach a goal of half a million dollars in six months,” Huggins declared.

To ensure that this goal is met, Huggins plans on placing bottles in different establishments such as supermarkets, credit unions, schools and shops in villages.

Bottles have already been placed at the First Caribbean Bank and the Bank of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Positive that the initiative will succeed, the facilitator said that the only thing that can possibly hamper the campaign is if there is political division.

“I want to make the point that we shouldn’t see this as a ULP (Unity Labour Party) thing,” Huggins noted. “There are no political divisions here. We can put our politics aside for once and do this for the country, because regardless to what we say, the airport is going to be here, whether ULP or NDP (New Democratic Party) is running the country.”

Furthermore, Huggins said that he sees this campaign as a point of entry for everyone in St Vincent to buy into the project.

“It’s affordable. It allows them to come on board for a dollar,” he said.

Huggins noted that possible bake sales and shows are also in the pipeline. He also stated that a website where persons can donate, using their credit card, is also a possibility.

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said an additional US$80 million is needed to complete the construction of the airport, which is scheduled to be opened in 2014. (BK)