The head of a charity that provides meals for the housebound and disabled said that donations were vital to keep the organisation in business.

Joe Gibbons, president of Meals on Wheels, added that cash, even small amounts, mounted up and helped the charity continue to provide a service to those in need.

Mr Gibbons was speaking after a group of friends decided to give up alcohol for the first month of the year — known as Dry January — and opted to donate the near $3,000 raised to Meals on Wheels. The group of around 13, connected by sports clubs, stopped drinking for a month, with a $100 charge for entry and a $300 penalty for those who fell by the wayside.

One of the organisers of the group, Major Ben Beasley, a full-time soldier in the Royal Bermuda Regiment, said others had chipped in $100 but said they would not take part, while some participants raised matching funds from their employers, bringing the total to $2,800 at the end of the challenge.

Mr Gibbons said: “A lot of small community efforts raise two, three thousand dollars.

“People think it’s not very much, but for us it’s a great deal and if we have eight or ten of those it adds up and it makes a large difference.”

Major Beasley and some of the participants handed the cash over to Mr Gibbons last weekend at the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club in Paget — and celebrated the end of their month of abstinence with a drink. He said: “Every New Year, people talk about getting fit and healthy and they say they’re not going to drink. People were challenging each other saying they couldn’t do it for a month and instead of money changing hands between ourselves, we decided to do it for charity.”

He added: “There were certainly one or two people who fell foul, but that all added to the pot for Meals on Wheels.”

Major Beasley said that some of the participants work in the insurance industry where there are dinners to attend, while he had official RBR functions and most were involved in sports, with a social side after games.

“There was certainly some peer pressure, but I managed to resist it.”

The charity delivers meals to 185 people a day, with around 40 per cent of clients non-paying and 130 volunteers a week who prepare food and deliver it across the island.

Mr Gibbons said: “We have to raise about 50 per cent of our budget from the community.

“We get a small Government grant for which we’re grateful, but that’s ten per cent of our budget.”