Bahamas News
‘Let no one go hungry over the holidays,’ AML, ALIV, Bahamas Feeding Network Team Up to Feed 5,000 Families
#Bahamas, November 18, 2017 – Nassau – Declaring that “no one should go hungry over the holidays while others are feasting,” AML Foods Limited and ALIV announced today they will partner with the Bahamas Feeding Network for the most ambitious charitable campaign in the network and AML’s history – to raise $100,000 to put food on the tables of families that might otherwise go hungry over the holidays.
The campaign, called Feed 5,000 Families, will start in AML’s eight stores tomorrow and run through December 17th with customers able to donate $40 holiday meal packages in full or contribute to the make-up of a package at the checkout counter. To jumpstart the campaign, AML Foods Limited pledged $20,000 to the feeding fund. In Nassau, participating stores include Solomon’s Fresh Market Harbour Bay, Solomon’s Fresh Market Old Fort Bay, Cost Right Wholesale, Solomon’s Super Center and the new Solomon’s Yamacraw store. In Grand Bahama donations can be made at Solomon’s Lucaya, Solomon’s Queen’s Highway and Cost Right Wholesale Freeport.
In addition to taking donations at checkout, the company is teaming up with ALIV to make donations to the cause easier. Starting tomorrow, ALIV customers can participate in the Feed 5000 Families drive by texting FEEDAML to 2648 to make a donation.
“ALIV continues to fasten its increasing commitment to the people of the Bahamas. A key part of the ALIV brand encompasses creating meaningful experiences not only for customers, but also for those in our communities. This marks a shared effort to grant every man, woman, and child an opportunity to have a Christmas meal,” said Bianca Bethel- Sawyer, Events, Sponsorship & Community Manager at Aliv. “We believe this project is a great way to end 2017, giving families a chance to gather together around a meal to celebrate the Christmas holidays and the traditions that bind us together.”
Aliv customers can also donate by texting FEEDAML in the amounts of $1, $2, $3, $4, AND $5 to 2548.
The program was announced at a press conference today at Solomon’s Fresh Market, Harbour Bay. This is the second year AML has led this initiative during the holiday season. Last year, with the support of the community and campaign partners, the company raised $64,000 and distributed 1,600 holiday meal packages to families in need.
“This is the most amazing donation and an incredible partnership. We cannot thank AML Foods Limited enough, especially for understanding the need,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Feeding Network. “And this year we are really grateful that ALIV has joined the effort and is making it so easy to donate.
“There is nothing more heart-wrenching than to look into a hungry person’s eyes and see the sadness. It is bad any time of year, but over the holidays it can tear your heart out,” said Smith, whose team of volunteers prepares, plates and distributes more than 2,200 meals weekly in an ongoing campaign to ease the pain of hunger. The Network partners with more than 120 churches, soup kitchens and feeding centers as well as distributing over 300 meals every Sunday in the Fox Hill community.
“We are so grateful to AML Foods Limited which selected the Bahamas Feeding Network as its community feeding partner for this holiday season and is pulling out all the stops to make as much food available to people who truly need it,” Smith said.
Every $40 donation will buy a food parcel that includes a picnic ham, whole chicken, five-pound bag of rice, two cans of peas, two cans of vegetables and a box of stuffing. The package will comfortably feed a family of four.
“As a company, one of the key segments of our community outreach is hunger prevention. Last year, we started the program with an ambitious goal of feeding 5,000 families. With the tremendous support of our shoppers and corporate partners, we raised $64,000, a significant amount for our first launch. This year, we have set a goal of $100,000 which we believe will help us to increase our impact, helping more families in need celebrate the season with a special holiday meal,” said Renea Bastian, Vice President of Marketing & Communications at AML Foods Limited. “Our entire team is on board with this program and we look forward to working with The Bahamas Feeding Network making the season better for persons in our own community who might otherwise go without.”
No purchase is necessary to make a donation at any Solomon’s Fresh Market, Solomon’s or Cost-Right location. Donations can also be made at the Company’s headquarters in Nassau or Freeport.
Press Release: ALIV
Photo captions:
Header: ‘Let no one go hungry over the holidays’ – AML Foods Limited and ALIV announced they will partner with the Bahamas Feeding Network for the most ambitious charitable campaign in the network and AML’s history – to raise $100,000 to put food on the tables of families that might otherwise go hungry over the holidays. (Photo: Ronnie Archer)
Insert: Leading by Example – Renea Bastian, VP Marketing & Communications, AML Foods Limited (l.) jumpstarted the Feed 5000 Families campaign with a $20,000 donation to the fund. AML Foods Limited and ALIV announced they will partner with the Bahamas Feeding Network to raise $100,000 to put food on the tables of families that might otherwise go hungry over the holidays. Between Nov 17 – Dec 17, the public can donate towards $40 holiday meal packages in full or part at the checkout counter. ALIV customers can also donate by texting FEEDAML to 2548. (Photo: Ronnie Archer)
PM: Project delivers on promise and invests in youth, sports and national development
GRAND BAHAMA, The Bahamas — Calling it the fulfillment of a major commitment to the island, Prime Minister Philip Davis led the official groundbreaking for the Grand Bahama Aquatic Centre, a facility the government says will transform sports development and create new opportunities for young athletes.
Speaking at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex on February 12, the Prime Minister said the project represents more than bricks and mortar
— it is an investment in people, national pride and long-term economic activity. The planned complex will feature a modern 50-metre competition pool, designed to meet international standards for training and regional and global swim meets. Davis said the facility will give Bahamian swimmers a home capable of producing world-class performance while also providing a space for community recreation, learn-to-swim programmes and water safety training.
He noted that Grand Bahama has long produced outstanding athletes despite limited infrastructure and said the new centre is intended to correct that imbalance, positioning the island as a hub for aquatic sports and sports tourism.
The Prime Minister also linked the development to the broader national recovery and revitalisation of Grand Bahama, describing the project as part of a strategy to expand opportunities for young people, create jobs during construction and stimulate activity for small businesses once operational.
The Aquatic Centre, he said, stands as proof that promises made to Grand Bahama are being delivered.
The project is expected to support athlete development, attract competitions, and provide a safe, modern environment for residents to access swimming and water-based programmes for generations to come.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
The Bahamas, February 15, 2026 – For the better part of three years, Bahamians have been told that major Afreximbank financing would help transform access to capital, rebuild infrastructure and unlock economic growth across the islands. The headline figures are large. The signing ceremonies are high profile. The language is ambitious. What remains far harder to see is the measurable impact in the daily lives of the people those announcements are meant to serve.
The Government’s push to secure up to $100 million from Afreximbank for roughly 200 miles of Family Island roads dates back to 2025. In
its February 11 disclosure, the bank outlined a receivables-discounting facility — a structure that allows a contractor to be paid early once work is completed, certified and invoiced, with the Government settling the bill later. It is not cash placed into the economy upfront. It does not, by itself, build a single mile of road. Every dollar depends on work first being delivered and approved.
The wider framework has been described as support for “climate-resilient and trade-enhancing infrastructure,” a phrase that, in practical terms, should mean projects that lower the cost of doing business, move people and goods faster, and keep the economy functioning. But for communities, that promise becomes real only when the projects are named, the standards are defined and a clear timeline is given for when work will begin — and when it will be finished.
Bahamians have seen this moment before.
In 2023, a $30 million Afreximbank facility for the Bahamas Development Bank was hailed as a breakthrough that would expand access to financing for local enterprise. It worked in one immediate and measurable way: it encouraged businesses to apply. Established, revenue-generating Bahamian companies responded to the call, prepared plans, and entered a process they believed had been capitalised to support growth. The unanswered question is how much of that capital has reached the private sector in a form that allowed those businesses to expand, hire and generate new economic activity.
Because development is not measured in the size of announcements.
It is measured in loans disbursed, projects completed and businesses expanded.
The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. In June 2024, when Afreximbank held its inaugural Caribbean Annual Meetings in Nassau,
Grand Bahama was presented as the future home of an Afro-Caribbean marketplace said to carry tens of millions of dollars in investment. What was confirmed at that stage was a $1.86 million project-preparation facility — funding for studies and planning to make the development bankable, not construction financing. The larger build-out remains dependent on additional approvals, land acquisition and further capital.
This distinction — between financing announced and financing that produces visible, measurable outcomes — is now at the centre of the national conversation.
Because while the numbers grow larger on paper, entrepreneurs still describe access to capital as out of reach, and communities across the Family Islands are still waiting to see where the work will start.
And in an economy where stalled growth translates into lost opportunity, rising frustration and real social consequences, the gap between promise and delivery is no longer a communications issue.
It is an inability to convert announcements into outcomes.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
A hardline strategy that reduced murders, gunfire, and collateral deaths
The Bahamas, February 8, 2026 – What happens when police stop routinely granting bail to high-risk suspects and aggressively execute outstanding warrants? In The Bahamas, the answer in 2025 was fewer murders, fewer gunshots, and safer communities.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested 4,337 individuals on outstanding warrants last year, ensuring suspects were brought directly before the courts instead of being released back onto the streets. At the same time, police significantly curtailed the use of police bail for high-risk and repeat offenders, particularly those already entangled in violent disputes.
Police Commissioner Shanta Knowles said the shift was informed by hard lessons from previous years. Intelligence reviews showed that
many homicide victims were not random targets, but men already wanted by law enforcement and — critically — by other criminals. When released on bail, those individuals often became targets themselves, triggering retaliatory shootings that spilled into neighbourhoods, roadways and public spaces.
By keeping high-risk suspects in custody pending court appearances, police say they disrupted that cycle — removing both potential offenders and potential victims from the streets.
The impact was stark. Murders declined by 31 percent in 2025, falling from 120 in 2024 to 83, the largest percentage decrease in homicides since national tracking began in 1963 and the lowest murder count in nearly two decades.
Police leaders say the strategy also reduced the collateral damage that had increasingly alarmed communities. Innocent residents had been caught in “sprays of gunfire” as targeted attacks unfolded in residential areas, at traffic stops, and in public settings.
Gun-violence indicators reflected the change. Gunshot reports fell by 35 percent, while incidents detected by ShotSpotter technology declined by 29 percent, confirming that fewer shots were being fired across the country.
“Gunshots ringing out and cutting through our peaceful paradise were down remarkably,” Commissioner Knowles said, attributing the improvement to decisive enforcement, tighter bail practices, and sustained pressure on offenders.
Police also intensified enforcement against breach of bail conditions, charging and detaining more suspects than in any previous reporting period. Officers say the approach removed the opportunity for repeat offending while matters were before the courts.
Police leadership said the results go beyond statistics. By limiting bail for high-risk suspects and executing warrants at scale, the strategy saved lives, protected bystanders, and restored confidence in public safety.
In 2025, fewer people were hunted, fewer bullets were fired, and fewer families were left grieving — a shift police say was no accident, but the result of deliberate, hardline choices.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
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