by MELISSA WICKHAM

CHILDREN WILL BE IN THE FOREFRONT of this year's Silver Dollars For Children drive, now in its third year.

Chairman of the committee, Roy Ward, said the event, organised by the Kiwanis Club of Bridgetown, would invite children from various organisations across Barbados to lay the first coins instead of the usual dignitaries.

"This year we will be ensuring we have a higher level of participation. Some of our first coin-laying guests, specially invited individuals, will not necessarily be persons of a high profile. We will change the focus this year and put it on children," said the chairman during an 11 a.m. Press briefing yesterday.

The event was shifted from September 23 to October 14 in light of the recent tragedies. However, it will return to its September date next year.

Ward, a disaster management consultant, was one of those called upon to lend his expertise in the Arch Cot Terrace, Brittons X Road,
St Michael, apartment cave-in where a family of five died.

Silver Dollars For Children benefits eight national charities: The Learning Centre, the Barbados Cancer Society, The Asthma Association
of Barbados, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Barbados, Barbados Council For The Disabled, The Hope Foundation, National HIV/AIDS Commission and The Dyslexia Association.
Last year, $96 000 was collected from the event, but organisers are hoping to surpass that this year.

Chief executive officer of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Barbados, Adrian Randall, said the proceeds his organisation received from the drive helped in the rehabilitation of patients.

One such patient is 11-year-old Michael Clarke who suffered a stroke in October last year. Randall said some of the money from last year's event also went into providing first aid and CPR training for groups like the Girl Guides Association of Barbados and the Boy Scouts Association.

During the drive, members of the public place silver dollars along a specially cordoned mile from Bay Street to the Garrison Savannah from
7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

But, says Ward, there will be a number of changes to this year's event.

"We will not be focusing on any entertainment on the pastures of the grounds of the Garrison Savannah. That will be relocated to Bay Street to the parking lot of Light & Power. We will have entertainment by John King, Mighty Gabby, Nicholas Brancker, the BDF Band, and steel pan bands will be staggered along the route.

"There will be some changes in terms of the way in which the routing is done. This year we have had the co-operation of the Barbados Transport Board so all of the primary bus lines that would have affected us over the past two years have now been rerouted. You will not be seeing any buses along the one-mile strip," he said.

In addition to raising funds for children with health issues, the Kiwanis Club of Bridgetown also hopes to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. In the last two years it has failed to do so because the line was broken.