TCI Drug Prevention Raffle Winners

Turks & Caicos Sun, November 27, 2015

Turks & Caicos Islands Drug Prevention announces raffle winners

By Todeline Defralien

The Turks and Caicos Island Drug Prevention foundation held its annual raffle with the aim of raising funds to building a halfway house for recovering addicts, on Wednesday November 25^th, 2015 at Salt Café, Blue Haven Resort, Providenciales.

Overall there were about 30 participants in the raffle and the top five prize winners are: Sara England winner of two nights stay for two at The Palms; Kathleen Williams, winner of two nights stay for two at Blue Haven; Clive (Bay Bistro), winner of one night stay for two at Grace Bay Club; Latasha Delancy, winner of a 32” Flat Screen Television from Kishco, and Michelle Fulford-Gardiner, winner of Samsun Galaxy S5 phone from Digicel.

Raffle winner of the Samsung Galaxy S5 phone Michelle Fulford said, “I am really excited; I’ve always supported drug prevention foundation and their committee and I am really excited to win this Samsung galaxy S5. I bought a lot of tickets. I’ve never won anything, so I am quite elated to have won and I am going to continue supporting the Drug Prevention centre.”

The Foundation held a fund-raising Masquerade ball in September .

President of the Turks and Caicos Drug Prevention Foundation, Dierin Longmire,  who is a recovering addict for 25 years said the association is working toward constructing a halfway house on land they have been given on South Dock Road, Providenciales.

“We’re just waiting for the process of the paper works so that we can break ground in January. We are going to be housing, hopefully, up to 25 men so that we can help people with substance abuse problems and help people that are getting involved in drugs to stop using,” she added.

Highlighting the need for a Half-Way House, Longmire said statistics showed there are only 95 to107 inmates in Her Majesty’s Prison at the moment and 95 percent of those inmates are in there for drug and alcohol related crimes.

“So what we are trying to do is we’re working on both sides. We’re working on the side that the ones that are in the prison that get maybe an early release, but then they have to take an extension period and so they get a three month early release, but maybe have to do another six months in the Half way House, so they actually end up doing nine months in the half way house,” she explained.

The Premier Cup and the Masquerade ball worked together with the Foundation and they were given $20,000 from the Premier Cup, so  they now have a sum $170,000 in the bank.

The Halfway house, which will be 6,000sqft, will cost around $700,000.

 

Caption: L-R (Dierin Longmire President of the Turks and Caicos Drug Prevention Foundation, Lizzie Courey of Blue Haven, Lesley Ann Cardinal of Jimmy’s Dive Bar and Michelle Fulford Samsung Galaxy S5 phone winner).