The Eira Schader Home for the Aged in Trench Town in south St Andrew was in a shabby, run-down state in January 2016 and facing possible closure before it received a lifeline from the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

Lloyd Ferguson, administrator of the 16-room facility, which caters to senior citizens from inside and outside the community, told the Jamaica Observer that it was given muscle and an energy boost in February 2016 through proceeds from the breakfast.

Monetary donations collected from the event, which totalled more than $550, 000, was handed over to the administrators of the home. The publicity the home received from the event attracted other donors their way, who have ensured the home remains open today.

“From the prayer breakfast give we that energy, it coming like we get more muscles and strength to carry on. After 2016, another organisation came down here and from there on we just get more strength. From dem come een, dem mek we get a trainee nurse who come work and they pay them and everything.

“They also sponsor food for the elders here. Our project was very interesting to them so they took it up on their head and from that time until this time, they finance us every month. This was from 2016. At this present moment, we don’t really have any problems, because when we have problems, somebody always come and help,” said ferguson.

The home was established in October 1986, after Eira and Angella Schader came to Jamaica from Europe and decided they wanted to help Trench Town.

The couple met Ferguson, and some of his friends from the community, who proposed the idea of a home for the elderly. The Schaders accepted the proposal and every year up to 1991, the mother and daughter duo would raise funds and send it to maintain the facilities.

In 1991, they wrote a letter to the team in Trench Town, telling them that their source of funds had dried up and they could no longer send money.

“What really happened is that we never really went and found any sponsor. We tried to maintain it through our pocket. Orrette Wellington actually gave this home around $9 million out of his pocket. I have been administrating this home from 1986 and a take care of the elderly in here. PNP (People’s National Party) and JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) administrations swing in and out of office and none of them have really made any great contribution to this home as such.

“In 2016 we heard that the prayer breakfast would make a contribution because the home became shabby and rundown because of a lack of funding. The 16 rooms did run down. When the prayer breakfast came, they gave us back our energy and strength. They made a contribution of about $550, 000 to do repairs and set it up. All these official looking windows and doors, a fi dem money mek it happen. The other doors were old and unofficial,” noted Ferguson.

During a Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange this week at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue offices in St Andrew, chairman of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Organising Committee, the Reverend Sam McCook, highlighted that there are multiple levels of impact from its contributions to various entities over the years.

According to McCook, there is the financial contribution from the breakfast, which is usually followed by a lifting of the profile of the beneficiaries.

Also, the sponsor of the prayer breakfast, the Victoria Mutual (VM) Group, extends support beyond the immediate proceeds.

This year, the event will be held on January 20 at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston with the Clifton Boys’ Home in Darliston, Westmoreland, scheduled to be the main beneficiary of the proceeds. The home was razed by fire in 2017 but has since been rebuilt.

“There may be one or two [beneficiaries] over the years, who have fallen by the way side but the majority, have continued. They were doing this before we got involved,” declared McCook.

Assistant vice-president of group cooperate affairs and communications at VM Group Clover Moore spoke specifically to assistance to the Eira Schader Home for the Aged, saying that they “ended up getting bathroom fixtures from all over Jamaica, Hardware and Lumber jumped in and the VM team did their Labour Day project where we painted the place and other parties went in.

“They got furniture, they did a garden and after that we supported the Randolph Lopez School of Hope, with a Labour Day Project and a financial donation the year after that. It does create visibility and if we think it is something worthy of support we will support but also other entities can support as well so it does make a huge impact,” said Moore.