CORRENE Dummett likes to help hungry children. And believe it or not, those children are not overseas, they're right here in Bermuda.

Last summer, Mrs. Dummett heard that some children were going to primary schools without breakfast or lunch and as the community services director of the Southampton Seventh-day Adventist Church, she decided to act.

Funded by her church, the Coalition for the Protection of Children and other individuals, she and her team of volunteers take food to those children who need it every day.

The 64-year-old Mrs. Dummett, whose maiden name was Burrows, returned home to Bermuda only five years ago after more than 30 years living in Michigan.

Reporter JONATHAN KENT and photographer TONY CORDEIRO called round for a chat at the Southampton home of the kind-hearted Mrs. Dummett.

Q: What is your food for schoolchildren programme all about?

A: We just go around the primary schools every day and provide breakfast for those children who have not got any food. Cereal, milk, juice, fruit and a granola bar. Some of the children who come without breakfast also come without lunch. So they ask if we could bring a packed lunch for those children too. We do 340 breakfasts a month and about 140 lunches.

Q: Which schools do you go to?

A: Somerset Primary, Heron Bay, Elliott and Southampton Glebe, and we did do West Pembroke for a while. We also go to West End, Port Royal, Harrington Sound and St. George's. To the latter schools we take just fruit, juice and granola bars, just in case any child came to school that day without food, there would be something there for them.

Q: How is this scheme organised?

A: We have community service workers on the island from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I purchase everything and on Sundays I distribute it to the different people who'll be handing it out. We have been getting funding from the Coalition for the Protection of Children, who were trying to get funding from some of the larger corporations, but they hadn't been able to.

So we've gone to our churches and asked them for help and so far they have helped. I think this is a really good programme and it would be a shame if we had to stop it because of a lack of funding.

Q: What is the name of the programme?

A: We just call it the School Breakfast programme.

Q: So the Seventh-day Adventist Church is currently funding it?

A: Yes. I must say Sheelagh Cooper (of the Coalition for the Protection of Children) has been very good and she supported it out of her own money from October until early February. Since then, mainly the Southampton church has been paying for it.

Q: The food you give to the children sounds very healthy.

A: That's what we try to do. We always give them 100 per cent juice. Every now and then I slip a treat in there because you know how kids like something sweet.

Q: What happens when you get to the school?

A: I take the food there in a zip-up bag and I just let the children know and they pick up the food and go off to their classes. I go to Heron Bay. They really appreciate it. One little boy this morning - I could tell he was really hungry. He ripped that cereal box open and ate the granola bar and drank the juice. Everything went in one go. I think some of them don't get much supper at home. It's sad.

Q: Does that concern you that there are so many children sent to school without food?

A: Yes. Especially as Bermuda is such an affluent place and I think there should be some kind of a programme set up by the Government, where they can provide hot lunches and breakfast for the children at school.

But because of the high cost of living in Bermuda, it seems there are some parents who cannot afford shelter and food - it's either or. If they're sick or if they get laid off from work, it's worse. Even when they're working it can be difficult on what they're making to pay rent and also to feed the children. What I've found is that usually it's the single moms who have the worse problems.

Q: Do parents approach you for help?

A: No. What happens is that we have the guidance counsellors at the school and they find the children who are coming to school on a regular basis without food. I contact the counsellors and they give me information about the children.

I'm one of the people who take the food down to the school and the kids are really, really appreciative.

One boy this morning, he was so grateful to me. As he was walking down the stairs, he said, 'Have a nice day, thank you, thank you'. It's nice to feel that you've made that child's day.

And it's a well-known fact that children who have breakfast perform better in school.

It is a really rewarding thing. You know, even when the money was getting really low, there was always somebody around who would give us something.

We try to give them good quality food, nice apples and oranges. I don't want to give them any old thing.

Q: So how was it that you first became involved in this programme?

A: Last summer, I was talking to the assistant pastor at the church, where I am the community services director. I said to him, 'You know, there really aren't that many community services to do in Bermuda, there really isn't that much need here'.

He said he'd been talking to Nelson Bascome or someone in Government who said he wished the Government could have a breakfast programme in schools. I said, 'You mean there's a need', and he said, 'Yes, there are children going to school without breakfast'. So I decided to see what I could do about it.

Q: So it was your idea from the start?

A: Yes. But when I started, I found out there had been others who had been doing the same thing.

I approached every school at the beginning. Some of them said they didn't need it and some were afraid of the children standing out if they accepted the food, so they were reluctant.

But I have found that other children don't even question why some are getting their breakfast from me. I don't think they treat them any differently.

I called Victor Scott and they said they had someone coming from the Salvation Army to do it and I called Purvis and they already had someone doing it too.

So people have known there has been a need for this for some time, but the situation hasn't really been addressed. I would really like to see the Government providing these children with breakfast and lunch.

Q: Have you approached anyone from the Government about that?

A: I wanted to get it going for a year first and to get together some statistics, so I could prove to them there really was a need. So after a year, I will approach the Minister of Education.

Q: How many volunteers are involved in the programme?

A: There are two in Somerset, one at Southampton Glebe and three of us do Heron Bay. We used to have a lot volunteers at Elliott, because we originally had 38 kids there. But we found out they weren't all in need. Some of them were coming to us because they'd got up late or because they hadn't bothered to bring in breakfast.

Now we know the kids in need and I think we have two volunteers at Elliott.

The way it works is that I buy it and someone else will pick it up and take it to the schools. There are about ten of us altogether. I don't think there's been a day when someone hasn't been in the schools on time. It's working very well.

Q: Do any schools provide food for children?

A: Some do. I know Elliott has milk. But our programme is free of charge. I wish there was some facility where they could go and have hot food.

If it was possible I would like to go and cook them pancakes now and again.

Q: It must be satisfying work.

A: It is. It's a rewarding job. When you see how those kids love you and really appreciate what you do. One morning, I saw a boy who just sitting there, waiting, wondering where I was. When he saw me coming, he was so happy.

Q: Have you been involved in charity work in the past?

A: Yes, but that was in Michigan where I was living for 30-plus years. I was in charge of a community services department at a church there, where the needs were so much greater.

We used to have to provide furniture, clothes - once I gave out 17 food baskets in one day. That was really rewarding.

One year we were doing a programme to try and persuade the migrant workers to settle in different areas. They had found these farmers who could use them all year. So they approached me about finding housing for them. I found these people furniture and televisions too.

Q: So, are you from Bermuda originally?

A: Yes, I came back to look after my parents. I've been back for five years now. I just got started in community services here a couple of years ago.

Q: Why did you move to Michigan?

A: My husband Bruce is a physician and he went there to do his internship at a medical school and he found out when we got there that they needed black physicians, because there was only one other one in town. So we stayed.

Q: What other community services do you get involved in here?

A: Well, once a month we go down on Court Street and hand out soup and cornbread and sandwiches.

Q: Are there many people who come to you for food there?

A: I've had as many as 40 come out. To be honest, they're probably not all needy. They just smell the soup and think they'll have some. I would say on a regular basis, we do serve about 20 or 25 and that's probably about how many are really needy. we seem the same faces all the time.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: One thing I do is grow pineapples. I have 60 pineapple plants. I started off with one. I think we have 30 which are blooming right now.

Q: Is that something you have done for long?

A: Yes. Believe it or not, we started growing them in Michigan. We had a Brazilian exchange student who told us to try it because he said pineapples would grow anywhere. And they did grow! It took more than two years. And I had to put them outside in the summer and bring them in for the winter, But I grew pineapples in Michigan.

Q: What do you do with all those pineapples?

A: Eat them.

Q: You eat them all!

A: Yes! The rate they come is at one or two a week. So we can eat them. I give a few away too, but we eat more than we give away.

Q: What other hobbies do you have?

A: Well I love to swim and, of course, I have a seven-year-old grandson - he's a full-time job! His mom is going to school in Michigan, so we're keeping him down here. I have four grandchildren altogether.

Q: When you returned home from Michigan, did you think Bermuda had changed much?

A: It was a different world. Even the trees looked different. When we left it was right after the cedar blight and we didn't have too many palm trees. When I came back, I saw all these palm trees and different foliage that hadn't been around before.

Q: What about the people?

A: When I grew up, everybody was close to their family and all their relatives. I used to know everybody who lived over South Shore. Now I don't even the know the people who live in my brother's apartment.

And we never had locks on our doors or windows. Not any more. It's an entirely different place.

Q: How can people donate to your school breakfast programme?

A: Just call me on 238-0196. And they're welcome to put forward ideas of what other things we could do to help.