Charity leaders said yesterday they feared the impact the end of support from an emergency fund could have on Covid-19 crisis services.

The Bermuda Community Foundation told emergency fund grant recipients this week that the scheme was “beginning to wind down”.

Kelly Hunt, the executive director of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, said that cash provided by the fund had been “imperative” to the charity.

She added: “We would not be in a position to service the huge increase in need we are seeing for food security and basic supplies without this support.”

Ms Hunt said that money from the fund had allowed the charity to continue to maintain its stores, deliver groceries, and provide financial support to families for basic needs like laundry and medicine.

She added that the organisation understood that money in the fund was limited and that the charity was grateful to have benefited.

Ms Hunt said: “Based on the amount we are having to spend meeting the current need, it is not sustainable.”

She added that demand for the charity’s services had increased “exponentially” during the pandemic.

Ms Hunt said: “We have yet to see it levelling off.

“What we used to spend monthly on food costs, we are now spending in less than a week.”

She was speaking after the foundation said in a letter sent this week that they would continue to distribute grants “but wanted to advise that further grant disbursements should not be anticipated”.

The BCF added: “For many of the allocations, we budgeted the grants based on a month’s projections.

“We hope that those funds will enable you to deliver the essential or other services to the end of May 2020.

“We recognise that much of the work you are doing will need to be sustained beyond this initial emergency response and we are in discussions to plan more and sustained support for this key network of social services some of you have helped to create.”

However, the foundation emphasised: “No new support should be counted on from the BEF.”

Ann Spencer-Arscott, the executive director of the Bermuda Red Cross, said the three donations the organisation had received from the fund had been “crucial” to its work over the pandemic.

Ms Spencer-Arscott added the money had allowed the organisation to work with the health ministry to perform more than 2,700 health check calls while people were in isolation.

She added: “We have reached between 15,000 to 17,000 people with the distribution of masks to many different communities.”

Ms Spencer-Arscott said this included all 21 of the island’s rest homes, as well as 21 essential services providers and frontline workers.

She said the charity, which marks its 70th anniversary this year, had been forced to close three of its services on a temporary basis in March.

Ms Spencer-Arscott said the impact on the organisation had been “huge”.

She explained: “We have lost $60,000 in income as of the end of April.

“We had three fundraising events scheduled through April and May and the potential income of $100,000 has not been realised.”

Ms Spencer-Arscott said the organisation had been forced to lay off one staff member and cut the salaries of the remainder by 20 per cent.

She added: “This was a very difficult decision, as we are now at our busiest with several staff members working over 70 hours, seven days a week.”

Claudette Fleming, the executive director of Age Concern, said that the fund’s cash had been “vitally important and instrumental”.

Dr Fleming said that the money had been used to help seniors in areas that included food and medical supplies, electricity and housing.

She added: “In the month of March alone, we screened over 150 requests for help.

“To give you an idea of the significance of this increase of demand for our services, we average around 250 hardship requests a year.”

Dr Fleming said that the emergency fund had shown how philanthropy and the third sector could join forces in a crisis to get cash into the hands of groups that needed it.

She added: “We will have ongoing needs. We have seen increases of numbers of people who need help.

“We have had to ramp up our assessments and service provision to help people, particularly people who have found themselves without work income.”

Myra Virgil, the managing director and chief executive of BCF, said that the letter was not meant to shock fund recipients.

She added: “We do want them to know the resources will not last for ever and there is a need to move on to a more sustainable phase for the future.

“We are in the planning phase and we promise that we are not abandoning those in our community who continue to need our help.

“Next week, we will have more information about the next phase.”

Dr Virgil said that about $1.5 million had been either pledged or given to the fund by corporate donors and individuals.

She added that more than 60 island organisations had benefited, including groups that worked in key areas such as food security, medical care, community mental health, and seniors.