Jamaicans raise US$123,000 for Boys Town project

The project when complete will serve more than 3,000 youth who utilise the facility for sporting and educational purpose.

Seven years ago the well was decommissioned as the facility fell into disrepair, forcing management to purchase water at an unsustainable price.

Their situation is set to improve dramatically after Raymond Connell, a Jamaican living in Seattle in the US, was vacationing on the island and visited the community which was just a stone’s throw away from where he was born on Oxford Street, Hanna Town. While touring the facility, Connell recalled stopping to admire the statue of the late West Indies cricket great Collie Smith, his childhood hero, who grew up in the South Andrew community. He was immensely inspired more than ever and after listening to Trevor Spence speaking about the challenges, set himself on a mission to help his country in a meaningful way. 

“When I came back to Seattle I talked to some friends and they all became passionate about it. They couldn’t believe that in Jamaica people could be without running water,” Connell told Old Harbour News in an interview.

Some of these friends are members of Friends of Jamaica of Seattle, a non-profit organization of which Connell is the president. Together along with some “other friends I spoke privately to” and the Seattle-based Rotary Club of University District, as well as Ezra Teshome they raised more than the US$90,000 budget for the project.

Through this mission, also in partnership with the Rotary Club of St Andrew, Connell said he was able to reconnect with old friends and also establish linkages for the first time with some real influential people of strong Jamaican ancestral lineage which made galvanizing support more seamless. Some of these influential Jamaicans who contributed to this cause included Audley Deidrick, president and CEO, Airports Authority of Jamaica/Norman Manley International Airport;  Lance Lyttle, managing director of Seattle Tacoma International Airport; and  Walt Braithwaite, president, Boeing Africa. Deidrick is the current president of the Rotary Club of St Andrew.

“These things just didn’t happen by happenstance. Somebody, some power, some spirit put this thing together,” believed Connell, a past student of Morant Bay High School, who is an attorney specializing in Real Estate.

The pump has been sourced already in Jamaica, he informed Old Harbour News from his Seattle home, while they’re hoping to break ground “by mid-March”. The system will “100 percent” powered by solar.

After breaking ground the project is slated to run for three months and “by July they should be able to have water running and fully accessible”.

Spence, CEO, Boys Town Development Limited, which manages the property, added: “We are 24/7. When we close up that’s when the children go home. And if we don’t close up, the children, they don’t go home. It’s a home away from home for hundreds of children.”

Connell said he wants to build on this mission and is open to doing other projects in the land of his birth once the Boys Town project is complete. The extra funds, he said, will be pumped into enhancing the quality of service delivery to the community such as its after school programme and construction of a museum.

“It’s to rebuild the community. They have taken a beaten over the years. When you go through the community and you talk to the mothers especially, they want so much for their community… and they’re looking for a better life,” Connell said.

“I think US$123,000 is a small price to pay for the outcome that you’d expect if you give people a break.”

Nestled in the heart of the country’s capital Kingston, the community of Boys Town is classified as one of the city’s toughest enclaves marred by violent crimes perpetuated by gang warfare.

What, however, started out in the 1940s as just a cricket club, producing legends like Collie Smith, evolved into a social oasis of the sort with disciplines such as football, basketball and netball and a skilled training in partnership with HEART/NTA added to the programme.