Groups and Incentives travel group helps with hurricane restoration

When natural disasters strike, selfless volunteers rush to lend a helping hand without hesitation. Last month, a small crew of volunteers arrived in Nassau, Bahamas to aid with restoration efforts after Hurricane Matthew tore through the capital.

Senior account executive of Presidio Company, Tony Kaperick is one of 150 team members that eagerly volunteered his time to give back. According to Kaperick, Presidio Company usually holds their annual conference in Florida but decided to cruise to Nassau, instead.

“Instead of having our annual conference this year in Florida, we decided to get on a cruise ship together but when we learned we had a longer stay over in Nassau, based on the damage to some of the cruise ships we decided to see if there was a need in the community to do some hurricane relief efforts,” Kaperick said.

The Presidio team managed to split their efforts between The Salvation Army where 15 volunteers packed relief supplies and Clifton Heritage Park where 125 volunteers gave their best efforts.

Their efforts at Clifton Heritage park, in particular, were greatly welcomed as the park had been terribly damaged during Hurricane Matthew.

Managing Director of Clifton Park, Mario Bannister said the park had been inundated and the Clifton Park staff is more than appreciative to have the help of the volunteers.

“Our building sheds got destroyed, our administration office was totally destroyed, along the shoreline – all the structures except for one got destroyed. We have about 8 tons of seaweed along the shore and in that seaweed, you can find dead fish, dead birds and the stench from the water surge so we’re appreciative to have some help,” Bannister said.

“One of our most famous area of the parks is Jaws Beach, which is frequented by tourists from the cruise ship. So for them to do this today, gives us a jump on getting this part of the property operational. They’ve removed a lot of debris from broken and fallen trees, seaweed and garbage so this gives us a jump-start by three days.”

Despite being sweaty and scraped up, the volunteers expressed gratitude for being a part of the cleanup in a hands-on way and wished The Bahamas well in the continued cleanup and relief efforts.

 Thanks to the help of the volunteers from Presido, Clifton Heritage Park reopened for tours and event bookings on October 24, 2016, weeks earlier than initially expected.

Geneva Cooper, Coordinator of Bahamas Ministry of Tourism Emergency Coordinating Committee thanked the group for their unselfishness.

“On behalf of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and the Bahamian people, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to you for taking time out from your hectic schedules to volunteer and assist us with the restoration of Clifton Heritage Park and your outreach to the Salvation Army, in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. From all accounts the Presidio team worked tirelessly and accomplished so much despite the short time here on the island of New Providence,” she said.

Over the past several weeks, many friends and frequent visitors to The Islands of The Bahamas have shown overwhelming support offering their time and money to restore one of their favourite tourism destinations.