Dream Big Foundation serves up ‘Breakfast for Bright Futures’

The Elite Basic School in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew, provided Antoine Lodge with refuge, friends, and filial love when he was a student there more than 20 years ago.

Describing the school as a “safe haven”, Lodge said his experience at the early childhood institution instilled in him a desire to give back.

On Tuesday, he was able to fulfill that aspiration by launching the Breakfast for Bright Futures Programme through his Dream Big for Youth Foundation.

“Standing here today, launching this programme at the very school where you gave that to me, means more than words can really capture. That’s what this place gave me – not just food; it gave me safety, it gave me dignity, and it gave me someone who showed up for me when I needed it most,” he said, referencing the school’s principal Nicole ‘Aunty Andrea’ Salmon.

The programme will provide nutritious breakfast to the 45 students at the institution, twice weekly until December 15.

The 24-year-old, who is a photographer at The Gleaner, said he is willing to expand the programme with further partnership.

“This is the promise of the Dream Big Youth Foundation – that no child here has to choose between learning and eating the way some of us once did,” he said.

BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT

Lodge and his foundation had also previously supported the school by beautifying its the school grounds before the beginning of the school year in 2024.

Nastasa Wright, vice principal at Elite Basic, said this is the first official breakfast programme at the school. She expressed gratitude to Lodge on the foundation he chairs.

“It means a lot. When you have students that come in the morning … and they [didn’t] have any breakfast, you can know, because they are not going to do any work. This can help them to be more motivated in the morning. Breakfast is the first meal of the day, and when they have something on their stomachs, they are able to be more focused and more able to learn,” she said.

Wright said the school currently only serves children from Seaview Gardens, and they try to give each student an experience similar to Lodge’s.

“What we want to do here at Elite is to continue with that footstep that Ms Salmon (school principal) has already planted. So, we want to care and nurture for each and every child that puts their foot in this institution to help someone along the way, whether they came here or not, but to help just to build up the community so we can have a better generation,” she said.

Like Lodge, she said she would love for the programme to be expanded to cover other days of the week. She said the school is in the process of transitioning to an infant school to get more state benefits.

Infant schools are fully owned, operated, and funded by the Government with fully trained teachers, while basic schools are typically community- or privately-run early childhood institutions that rely heavily on tuition fees and partial government grants or stipends.

Recognising the difficulties that some families face in providing nutritious breakfast for the children, Monisa Grant, a parent at the institution, lauded the Dream Big Foundation for the initiative.

“When schools, parents, providers, community and our stakeholders work together, we can give our children a strong foundation for success,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com