Dear Source:
The Salvation Army has been active on St. Thomas for nearly 100 years. As with everywhere we work, we have tried to be of help and service to the community, and especially to those members of the community who are in greater need and have less with which to help themselves. We have been in our current location on Main St. near Market Square in Charlotte Amalie since 1941.
At present, some of the ways that we try to help the poor, homeless and underprivileged members of the local community are through our thrift store (located next to the chapel), food pantry and lunchtime soup kitchen, which we run from 11 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday.
That is to say, we have been running the soup kitchen daily until very recently. For many years now, at a variety of times, we have fed from 60 to 100 people a mid-day meal. For a few months, we tried to serve the food in our chapel, but when our volunteers and staff began to face physical attacks — when bottles were thrown into the chapel and when a few malcontents began to throw left over food back into the serving dishes — we had to return to the ‘carry-out’ policy instead. Although we hope to be able to return to allowing our customers to come inside and sit down to eat, there are some issues that need to be resolved first.
These issues are above and beyond the few already mentioned. We have often experienced mild problems of vandalism, such as graffiti on the buildings, garbage (including on at least one occasion human excrement) thrown at the front door of the chapel, and verbal threats of death and rape made against our staff. Then, there are the more serious problems of harassment by a few (and I do mean a few — four or five at most) who position themselves on the public street before our building and shout obscenities about us, our work and the food we serve in attempts to intimidate those who wish to avail themselves of the services we offer. Sometimes they are very successful in what they do, and many deserving and wonderful people have been too scared to come and get the food they need. We do what we can to encourage and help everyone, and with the help of the local police (in particular Officer Chinnery, who was of great assistance to us in a particular situation a few months back), we have been able to work through several issues.
However, as each one is solved, it seems that two more develop. We have had vandals climb over the fence at night and pry metal shutters, reaching through bars with sticks and poles to steal large quantities of food supplies and other items that were destined for both the food pantry and soup kitchen. Our cameras did not catch a sufficiently clear picture for the police to be able to prosecute. Our locks have been “spiked” by breaking off metal in them or filing them with other things. Our congregation has been harassed on their way into and from our Sunday services by individuals spouting anti-Christian views and accusing us of Christian heresy. Our staff and volunteers have been threatened with everything from death on down — both at work and away from it — to such an extent that we felt it necessary to remove the identifying signs from our vans to avoid being targeted. All this we dealt with as each incidence occurred. They often cost money to correct and repair, and every time we have had to spend money on that, it cuts into the amount we have for the real work.
Then recently, the vandals have decided to attack our water supply. It should be noted that these are just a few angry individuals. They are angry at life and for some reason have decided to focus that anger on us. We do not know why or what their reasons for wishing to stop us could be, nor what they hope to achieve beyond stopping us from being able to help those in the community who will suffer most if we cannot provide food and clothes for them. We have had to cut back because of financial concerns. Now we have to cut back further because of this recent vandalism.
Somehow, these malevolent individuals have managed to damage the water pipes by stuffing things into the pipes and breaking the various valves that control the supply. We contacted WAPA each time to check if this was a maintenance problem or some other situation, and WAPA has been very helpful in giving guidance and assistance, but the damage is on our property not theirs, so it is our responsibility to fix. This costs money and takes time, and honestly we are not sure where to start. A simple fix will be open to repeated damage and be a continual money drain. A more complicated solution may be available but might cost a great deal. The result has been that part of the building has been without water, and this includes the kitchen.
We tried bringing usable water in; we tried getting a clean trash container with a liner to keep usable water for the kitchen. The former is both time-consuming and costly; the latter failed because a vandal chose to destroy the container. For a while, we had no water at all at any of our buildings on the compound. This means we have no water to cook with, no water for washing hands or dishes, no water to provide drink for the thirsty and no toilet facilities for staff, volunteers or customers. We cannot operate long term like this. It is not a hurricane aftermath situation when the community accepts that these things may not be available. It is simply the result of a few uncaring individuals who, for whatever their reasons may be, have decided to target the work we try to do for our community. The result is that we were forced to close both the soup kitchen and the thrift store for a few days while we try to find a solution to the problem and a way to implement that solution.
It breaks our hearts to have to do this. We vow to do everything we can to solve the problem as quickly as possible, and we ask for the understanding and, if appropriate, the help of everyone in the community to get us back on our feet and to stop these few from harming the many. The Salvation Army is dedicated to helping those who need help in whatever way we can.
Our international mission statement says that “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by love for God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in his name, without discrimination.” It is our prayer that we will not be forced away from carrying on that mission here on St. Thomas for the next 100 years.
The Officers of the Salvation Army, St. Thomas
