Western Bureau: The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) on Wednesday donated $25,000 to the cash-strapped New Beginnings Boy Home at Ramble in Hanover and will donate a similar sum every three months over the next year.

“It is $25,000 and this is the first of four quarterly tranches that we are going to be giving the home,” JPSCo’s community relations officer, Kathi Cooke, said, adding that at the end of that year the JPSCo would do a review to determine whether to continue the contributions. She was speaking with the Observer at the handing over of the cheque at the Home on Wednesday.

The Home, which was set up over a decade ago to help homeless and problem boys, has helped well over 300 such youths over the years. But it needs financial assistance if it is to expand and improve upon its infrastructure to cater to the growing number of boys in need.

JPSCo’s contribution will help to do that.

“I feel wonderful. We thank the Lord for it. We believe it’s the beginning of something new. We believe that more Jamaican corporations and companies are going to jump onboard and help us train these young men,” Reverend Bob Holland who runs the facility with his wife, Mary told the Observer.

He said the funds would go directly toward helping to complete the two storey building that will house a recreation room with a trainee supervisor bedroom upstairs and a tool and apiary equipment rooms downstairs. Cooke also expressed pleasure at having made the contribution.

“We came and had a look at what was happening and said yes, this would be a good project. Too, it is in Hanover which is a parish that we sometimes forget and because it is in our region we decided Hanover would be a good place to go to,” she said. “But we really feel happy with what is happening here and we think it is a very good project and this is one of the ways JPSCo, as we say, change lives with our energy.” The infrastructure expansion work is, however, far from over and additional funds are needed, Holland indicated Wednesday.

After almost 12 years under construction the facility has only two dormitories, three classrooms and a single administrative office. And those were built because of the volunteerism of work teams from overseas churches. It is those churches along with a number of other interests groups in the United States who continue to contribute to the Home.

Montego Bay businessman, Donat Crichton, who got the JPSCo aware of the Home and who has himself pledged a monthly $10,000 donation says it is time for Jamaicans to contribute meaningfully.

“I’m very happy that JPSCo decided to assist Reverend Holland on this project because it is a project that truly deserves attention. What he is doing here is tremendous,” he said.

“He is taking boys, especially boys who are homeless and giving them a home, teaching them Christian principles and giving them a skill… They come out skilled, they come out with morals, christian principles and they come out as men ready for the world.”

Crichton, who owns/operates Crichton’s Texaco along Barnett Street in the resort city, added that Holland and his wife deserved all the support they could get.

“He and his wife, they left the United States and they have taken on our burden and it requires a lot of patience and a lot of dedication. As a person who has been trying to help them to raise funds for the home I find that even a lot of Jamaicans are not prepared to assist financially and yet they have taken the time, their lives to build this institution for our country…,” he said.

Most of the boys who enter the home can hardly read but once they become independent readers they are educated in the language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, history and geography in order to attain their General Equivalency Diploma (GED).

They are also given biblical lessons.

Boys who are successful in attaining the GED are then given the opportunity to participate in the six month “Youth with a Mission” programme in Brazil.

Nineteen year-old Orville Gordon who has resided at the Home for the past nine years is looking forward to that programme once he completes his GED exams in June. And speaking as one who has benefited from the facility, he added his voice to the appeal for financial support even as he expressed how good he felt that the utility company had opted to lend its support.

“I feel very good (that JPSCo has contributed). I wish (now for) the rest of the business community to come onboard and join the JPSCo,” he said. “It is very important. There are a lot of guys out there who don’t have any aim for their lives and they are unruly.”

New Beginnings started in 1984, when Rev Holland took in the first boy. At the time the home was located at a missionary’s house at Bogue in Montego Bay. But a year later, Holland rented a five-bedroom house in Hanover and took in another four boys and then in 1986 he and his wife purchased the 19-acre property on which the home now stands at a cost of JA$60,000.

The facility is now home to 17 boys, one of whom was only recently taken in.

In the last few months, Holland said the number of persons calling from as far away as Kingston have been many but they cannot take the boys because they do not have the space to accommodate them.

Persons wishing to make a contribution can call 999-2672 or write to Box 4, Ramble PO, Hanover.