At the finale event of the appeal at the Hotel de France on Sunday, Sir Nicholas Young said it was beyond anything he had seen from a single community.
‘Your generosity financially and your generosity of spirit is something I have not really experienced in quite the same way before,’ he said.
‘It is a quite extraordinary sum of money and this is an act of really quite extraordinary generosity.’ Sir Nicholas said that the money had helped the charity provide immediate relief but that the emphasis now would turn to rebuilding the regions and the lives devastated by the unprecedented disaster on 26 December.
Appeal chairman Mike Wavell also spoke of the need to move from ‘relief to rebuild’ as the first phase of the appeal drew to an official close.
It was his hope, he said, that Islanders would get the chance to become involved in individual projects in the affected regions.
The Appeal president, the Bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache, and committee member Senator Jean Le Maistre both referred to how the Red Cross had sailed to Jersey’s help in 1944 and how appropriate it was that the charity had been chosen as the channel for the Island’s fund-raising efforts.
