The Westmoreland Infirmary was on Monday presented with a donation of $50,000 from Grange Hill Alliance Football Club, the winners of the Westmoreland leg of the recent LIME Futsal competition.

The winners of the parish competitions each copped $150,000 in prize money. Members of the Grange Hill Alliance, however, took the decision to give a portion of their winnings to the infirmary, which, according to Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar Councillor Bertel Moore and acting Matron Michelle Garwood, “would be a big help”.

Garfield Johnson, captain of Grange Hill Alliance team, said the donation was their way of giving back.

“It came out of consensus within the team. We sat as a team and discussed it and decided we wanted to make this contribution,” Johnson told the Jamaica Observer West.

He said given the make-up of the team, whose members came from various areas of the parish, it was likely that nearly all 10 players have relatives or knew someone who was at one time a resident of the infirmary.

While the core of the team was from Grange Hill in the western part of Westmoreland, there were other players from the parish’s capital Savanna-la-Mar, as well as from Burnt Savannah.

Additionally, he said, the team consisted of players who had played in organised club football, noting that Ryan Gayle plays for Western Confederation Super League champions Savannah SC, Dane Spence plays for Confed semi-finalist Sandals Whitehouse, while Leaford Pearce is an assistant coach at Godfrey Stewart High and played for Reno FC last season when they won the Western Confederation League and also qualified for the Premier League.

And while they repeated as parish champions this year, Grange Hill Alliance did not do as well in the competition as they had hoped, being knocked out in the first round of the national play-offs, losing 3-0 to eventual champions Portmore.

In welcoming the contribution, Garwood, the acting matron of the infirmary, which has 76 residents, said it would be “a big help as we cater to the day-to-day needs of all the residents here”.

She said: “We will use what we get today to add to what we already have. I believe it was a very good gesture [from the team]… we would love others to come on board and assist with the many needs we have here, and we hope others will be encouraged to donate as well.”

For his part, Mayor Moore lauded the team members for the gesture and said: “its good to know they are thinking of the less fortunate.”

He noted that such donations from the private sector and civic groups are greatly appreciated, as the Westmoreland Parish Council and the Government, despite their best efforts, are unable to satisfy the needs of the facility.