Bradley Finzi Smith (right), executive director of Food For the Poor, proudly accepts the 2007 Matin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award from Ken Jones, a member of the Jamaica-America Friendship Association, at the annual banquet held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, on Saturday, April 28. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Jamaica's leading charitable organisation, Food For the Poor (FFP), was on Saturday night presented with the 2007 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award for its outstanding service to the poor and destitute.

This prestigious award, organised by the Jamaica-America Friendship Association, in collaboration with the United States Embassy, is presented annually to either a distinguished Jamaican or American i years who is considered to have lived and worked in the spirit of the late civil rights leader or to a distinguished Jamaican or American organisation that embodies these beliefs.

Service to humanitarian causes and ideals is paramount in making the selection.

"It's a humbling experience to stand here and receive this award - that's the most common and politically correct manner in which most acceptance speeches reply ... ," Bradley Finzi Smith, executive director of FFP, said at the annual Martin Luther King Humanitarian Banquet, held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston.

"Somehow, however, at this moment, it does not seem adequate enough to convey the gamut of emotions that are traversing the organisation. In the words of two Jamaicans - 'To be poor is a crime' and 'Who feels it knows it'," he added.

"Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream - today FFP stands on the mountain top of commitment," said Mr. Finzi Smith.

Past Jamaican recipients of the Martin Luther King Jr. award include Prime Ministers Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, as well as AbeIssa, Carlton Alexander, Father Richard Holung, Lady Bustamante, and Douglas Orane and Sir William Morris, who were last year's recipients. FFP is the first organisation to have received this award.

FFP, founded in 1983 by Jamaican Ferdinand Mahfood, is designed and operated to help the poorest of the poor and does so in 16 countries located in the Caribbean and Central America.

The organisation contributes to education by supplying the nation's schools with furniture, computers and stationery. More than 500 schools across the island benefit from the FFP school-feeding programme, which assists students with breakfast, lunch and books.

FFP contributes to health by providing ambulances, medicine, food and wheelchairs to hospitals, clinics and public homes.

The organisation also contributes to housing by building an average of 250 homes for the destitute every month. FFP also runs a training programme in the island's prisons and fully funds the Salvation Army's street-feeding programme, which feeds more than 500 people daily on the streets of Kingston.