School farm rebirth

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Maggoty High Principal Sean Graham could not hide his joy when the school was presented with a cheque for $2.5 million from Digicel Foundation in its role as sponsor for the Jill Stewart MoBay City Run.

“We were really surprised, pleasantly surprised when we got the call. I really want to thank [run organiser] Janet Silvera and all the other persons who were instrumental in including the school in something like this, especially that we are all the way in St Elizabeth and this is St James,” Graham told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday after near 10,000 people participated in the annual charity event in Montego Bay.

“We were not even thinking about it but we are really happy with that,” he added.

Graham explained that the funds will be used for something that is very important to his students.

“This money is going to be used to help get our farm back up. We lost some chicks, and we lost the coop, and there are other educational needs within the classroom,” he said.

The school is still struggling to recover from significant damage inflicted by Hurricane Melissa in October last year.

“We’ve been through a lot because of the hurricane and we are still trying to settle ourselves. All we are filled with now is just gratitude, and we can’t wait to put the money to use to benefit the students, especially as we continue to make sure that we recover,” said Graham.

“The National Education Trust (NET) will take care of the major infrastructure but this cash will be used to subsidise and do some other supplementary things that we need in order to push forward,” he added.

Digicel Foundation chair Joy Clark said it was an easy decision to provide assistance to the school through their partnership with the Jill Stewart MoBay City Run.

“We believe in education and we believe that no child should be left behind; for the Digicel Foundation, that’s part of our ethos. When we heard about the devastation at Maggoty, we thought that giving them a good amount of money to help them recover would be the best thing to do for them at this time,” she said.

In selecting beneficiaries for this year’s run, much of the focus has been on educational institutions as the post-Hurricane Melissa recovery continues across several parishes.

“A school like Maggoty High that was so badly damaged and is not doing as well as it should be doing right now, they’re getting $2.5 million,” Silvera explained.

“Then you have Maldon, which we just added, and Cornwall College. Cornwall College, they have an industrial arts centre that has produced some of the best in this country, and that centre is in dire need of fixing up. We are putting $1 million towards that,” she stated.

Silvera stressed that none of this philanthropy would have been possible without the support of individuals and sponsors who turned out yet again, this time in even greater numbers, at Harmony Park in Montego Bay.

“We had over 7,000 people last year and this year we have almost close to 10,000. We have about that in terms of registration, but we have other people coming into the park so we’ll probably have about 12,000 when it is completed,” she said Sunday.

Silvera could not hide her gratitude for entities such as RIU which sponsored more than 2,600 participants. Sandals Resorts International was a close second with 2,000, and in addition to Digicel Foundation there were other major sponsors. According to Silvera, they have outdone themselves this year.

“We’ve been talking to Jamwest, and one of their subsidiaries will help with the engineering lab at Herbert Morrison [Technical High School],” she revealed.

“We at MoBay City Run, we are giving the people money, and sponsors are [also] coming in and are going the extra mile, doing more, and that is what we want to see happen. This is what we have been praying for, that our sponsors will give us the money to go and help these schools but will not do it as a short-term fix but as a long-term fix,” Silvera said.

She looked back at how far the event has come from her initial effort in the early days when she sold some of her clothing to help students with school fees.

“This is a fantastic gift that we have been given for our 10th anniversary; it’s a great gift that the people of Jamaica have given us,” she said.

“I am exhilarated by it. I’m inspired, too, to bring out numbers higher than it is right now,” added Silvera.

Sandals Resorts International Executive Chairman Adam Stewart addresses the large crowd of participants who turned out for the Jill Stewart MoBay City run Sunday morning. May 3. Formerly the MoBay City Run, the event was, in 2024, officially renamed the Jill Stewart MoBay City Run in honour of Stewart’s late wife who was a major contributor to the programme before her passing in 2023.