Last year’s Cinderella Manning Cup team Calabar High received a timely boost to their football programme through sponsorship from leading distributors Cari-Med on Monday.

The sponsorship, which comes in the form of cash and kind, totals in excess of a half-million dollars through four of their brands — Ensure, Old Spice, JF Mills and Swiss.

The donation was done on the school compound where some of the players were given a quick lesson on the nutritional value of some of the items they will receive, as well as how to creatively prepare meals ahead of training sessions and games.

Marketing manager at Cari-Med Allison Dexter told the boys of some of the benefits of Ensure which can be used as a meal supplement.

“What Ensure is doing is making sure that you get complete and balanced nutrition, so if you don’t get to eat because you have a nervous stomach before you go and play the game, you can have a bottle of Ensure.

“It will give you all that you need, as if you ate a meal and it goes through your digestive system quicker because it’s liquid,” she advised the players and management team.

Team manager and secretary of the Calabar Old Boys’ Association (COBA) Christopher Denny, was caught off guard by the generosity of Cari-Med.

“The conversation that we had was, what does the team need? What kind of nourishment do they need? What is the lack? And they went into their own stores and they surprised me with this big fantastic offer and we are very grateful,” Denny disclosed at the handover.

He told the boys not to take the gifts received for granted and reminded them of their responsibilities as new brand ambassadors.

“With this comes some responsibility for us at Calabar… each and every boy in the school now has accountability, not just to Calabar, but also to Cari-Med. They are a serious company out there in the economy in Jamaica (and) the name Cari-Med means something to everybody that works at Cari-Med… now they have entrusted that name to us (and) it is a serious responsibility,” he said.

Acting principal of Calabar Calvin Rowe was also grateful for the assistance provided to the school’s football team.

“We really want to thank you, on behalf of the school community, and I want to assure you that our young men will do everything that they do for the honour of the school and certainly they will remember the contributions that you have made. We look forward to bigger and better things in the years to come,” he noted.

Calabar High is the second school to benefit from this type of donation from Cari-Med as defending Manning Cup champions Jamaica College also received a sizable donation from the company recently.