Montego Bay, St James — BUSINESS people from the West came out in their numbers to support the fourth annual Taste of Tryall fundraiser held at the Tryall Club last Friday.

The event featured a variety of culinary creations from the Tryall Villa Chefs and auctions.

Chairman of the Tryall Fund Terry McGraw expressed her gratitude for the support that the Tryall Fund has received over the last four years.

“This is our biggest fundraiser of the year and we are extremely grateful for the support. The one thing we would love is to have more locals attend the event because all the funds raised goes right back into the parish. We will definitely work toward getting even more support from the local community for next year,” she said.

The Tryall Fund is the non-profit philanthropic arm of the Tryall Club. Its main focus is ensuring that schools at the pre-primary level are up to par with the requirements of the Early Childhood Commission.

Public Relations Officer for the Tryall Fund Denise Reid said the Tryall Fund was making ia significant contribution to children in Hanover.

“When you consider that only recently the Minister of Education was lamenting the fact that enough money was not being spent on Early Childhood institutions, it becomes evident that the work of the Tryall Fund is extremely important especially with the success rate that it has with the first basic school (Sandy Bay Community Basic School) that the fund has adopted.

“Before the Tryall Fund came on board, only one student was deemed qualified to move on to primary school. Now, with the Tryall Fund on board, ninety-nine per cent of the students from the Sandy Bay Community Basic School were deemed proficient and ready to move on to primary school. I hope that people will continue to support us in whatever ventures we have, Taste of Tryall being the biggest one of them and we look forward to even more support from corporate or individual entities so that we can continue the work that we are doing,” she said.

Organisers say the Tryall Fund has been able to expand its initiatives to include a partnership with ‘Healing the Children’, a Connecticut-based non-profit organisation that provides medical and dental services to children throughout the world who lack medical and financial resources. Through this partnership, the Tryall Fund was able to have a week long dental mission which saw 400 children and adults receiving fillings,extractions and cleanings.

The Tryall Fund has also adopted three new schools through its ‘Success by Six’ model pre-school program. The fund continues its presence at the Sandy Bay Community Basic School which was the first model school for the program.

The Tryall Fund also provides assistance to the Lucea Infirmary along with continuing support of evening health clinics at Sandy Bay two nights per week.