All Hands Across the Sea Project Updates

The Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF) is proud to continue its long-standing partnership with Hands Across the Sea (HATS) to strengthen literacy across St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For the school year 2025-2026, this collaboration expanded to include the Early Pages Programme, an initiative designed to introduce preschoolers to the joy of reading at the earliest stages of their learning journey. With funding provided by the Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF), HATS will distribute 2,599 books and 7 floor mats to 11 Primary Schools across St. Vincent. The selected schools will include 7 libraries that are being rejuvenated and 4 libraries that are receiving books as a ‘top-up’ to their current collection.

On Tuesday, 25th of February 2025, the Handing Over Ceremony of books from Hands Across the Sea (HATS) was held at the National Public Library Conference Room under the theme “Keeping Literacy in Focus in Challenging Times.” With funding provided by the Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF), HATS will distribute 2,599 books and 7 floor mats to 11 Primary Schools across St. Vincent. The selected schools will include 7 libraries that are being rejuvenated and 4 libraries that are receiving books as a ‘top-up’ to their current collection.

On Friday 20th October 2023, the Handing Over Ceremony of books from Hands Across The Sea (HATS) was held at the Conference Room of the National Public Library under the theme “Chartering a Brighter Path for Child Literacy”. With funding provided by the Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF), HATS will distribute 2,599 books and 7 floor mats to 11 Primary Schools across St. Vincent. The selected schools will include 7 libraries that are being rejuvenated and 4 libraries that are receiving books as a ‘top-up’ to their current collection.

On Wednesday 16th November 2022, the Handing Over Ceremony of books from Hands Across The Sea (HATS) was held at the Conference Room of the National Public Library with this year’s theme being “Reading Makes Me Smart”. With funding provided by the Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF), HATS will distribute 4,546 books to 15 Primary Schools most of which are within the Red & Orange Zones in St. Vincent along with one school in the Grenadines and the National Public Library. The selected schools in the red and orange zones were those directly affected by the La Soufriere Eruptions in April 2021.

On Thursday 18th November 2021, the Handing Over Ceremony of books from Hands Across The Sea (HATS) was held at the Conference Room of the National Public Library with this year’s theme being “Reading Unlocks the Door to Success”. With funding provided by The Mustique Charitable Foundation (MCF), HATS will distribute 9,103 books to 13 Primary Schools within the Red & Orange Zones in St. Vincent.

This year we have received more wonderful thank you cards from students of all the schools we support with this fantastic project, funding the purchase of books and providing literacy support through Hands Across the Sea! With your support we are able to ensure these students have access to a huge number of books and learning materials.

This year we have received more wonderful thank you cards from students of all the schools we support with this fantastic project, funding the purchase of books and providing literacy support through Hands Across the Sea! With your support we are able to ensure these students have access to a huge number of books and learning materials.

On Thursday 11th October, 2018, the Handing Over Ceremony of the Library resources from Hands Across the Sea (Hands) was held at the Conference Room of the Curriculum Unit of the Ministry of Education. With your support we are able to ensure these students have access to a huge number of books and learning materials.

Working with Hands Across the Sea to purchase 4,144 books for 11 primary schools in St. Vincent to help improve the literacy rate. Two of the schools in St. Vincent that have recently received books through the Hands Across the Sea Project are Park Hill Government School and South Rivers Government School. This took place during a wonderful week of literacy activities in which the whole community was involved. Chris Canuto is a Peace Corps Volunteer based at the South Rivers Government School who has experience in remedial literacy skills and along with the literacy team are working hard to improve literacy levels. Chris painted the beautiful wall murals you can see in the photographs below.