Sandals Resorts International yesterday increased its fund-raising effort to help hurricane victims in The Bahamas by promising to match every dollar donated to its charity arm Sandals Foundation.

“Sandal s Resorts International pledges to match every dollar donated to the Sandals Foundation in an effort to help restore hope and rebuild together,” the resort chain stated in an advertisement shared on social media.

Using the hashtag #BahamasStrong, the resort chain asked the public to make donations to www.sandalsfoundation. org/donation.

A day after Hurricane Dorian slammed in Grand Bahama, after first hitting Great Abacos Island with devastating effect, Sandals launched an appeal for donations and announced the establishment of two collection centres — one at Sandals Royal Bahamian in Nassau, Bahamas, and the other at Hospitality Purveyors Inc, in Miami, Florida for in-kind donations.

Sandals Resorts Deputy Chairman Adam Stewart, who is also the Sandals Foundation president, noted that all three Sandals properties in The Bahamas escaped Dorian’s wrath, thus enabling the company to focus on assisting the people of The Bahamas.

“As a matter of fact, the storm was over 200 miles away from the closest point from our hotels, which gives us the opportunity to focus on recovery and assistance, however and wherever we can,” he said on Tuesday.

The resort company and the foundation have also partnered with Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism to generate assistance from the global tourism community for the affected islands in the archipelago.