Kerry tours drop-off site for Grenada

NEW YORK: Teresa Heinz Kerry, the African-born billionaire heiress and wife of Democractic Presidential hopeful John Kerry, made it to the Caribbean immigrant-populated borough of Brooklyn Friday, touring the Flatbush Caton Merchants Mart, a drop-off site for hurricane relief supplies to Grenada and other islands devastated by Ivan.

Touring with Roy Hastick Sr, Head of the Caribbean Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CACCI) one of the organisers of the effort, Heinz Kerry urged volunteers to focus on sending essentials such as water and electric generators to the region, even as she stopped for photo opportunities with children and accepted a piece of art from a Haitian artist at the mart. Water was among supplies reportedly donated by her husband’s campaign team along with blankets and first aid kits, some eight days after Hurricane Ivan wrecked Grenada and caused damage to Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and the Cayman Islands.

Hastick Sr, called Heinz-Kerry’s visit “a major boost for us and the community to show we have someone on a national level concerned with what’s happening in the Caribbean region.” Her visit came on the same day that polls showed President George Bush eating away at Kerry’s support in New York. Kerry was campaigning in Detroit, Michigan, where he too reached out to potential black voters.