FALMOUTH, Trelawny — The Trelawny Municipal Corporation on Holy Thursday received a set of medical supplies from alumni of the Neil McNeil High School for boys which has had a bond with the municipality over the last three years.

The group handed over two suitcases of medical items, which included needles, syringes, gauze pads, catheters, dressings, and face masks, and other items.

Three years ago the Canadian past students made a similar donation to the Falmouth Infirmary.

Neil McNeil High School is an all-boy Roman Catholic secondary school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is named after Neil McNeil, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Vancouver from 1910 to 1912 and Roman Catholic archbishop of Toronto from 1912 to 1934.

During the handover of the medical supplies, Neil McNeil old boy Peter Wilson, who is of Jamaican parentage, revealed that a group of 50 past students who entered the school in the 1970s had formed an old boys’ association which is focused on “giving back”.

“We are past students from a high school in Canada called Neil McNeil. We would have started together when we were 14 years old — and that was a long, long, long time ago. Fifty of us are still in contact with each other. We meet every Friday at 4:30 pm, along with one of our teachers, and we are now in our 60s and we are looking to give back what it is that we can do to make things a little bit better,” Wilson stated.

He further revealed that the medical supplies that were handed over were sourced from a Canadian organisation called Not Just for Tourists.

“There is an organisation in Canada called Not Just for Tourists where they basically take these surplus medical supplies from hospitals, from clinics, et cetera, and they just ask you to bring some of them to the country that you want to donate to,” Wilson said.

“My parents are originally from St Ann. They left in the 1950s and went to England. Myself and my three brothers and sisters were all born in England and then we wound up in Canada in 1964.

“I am now looking to come home. It is not really my home, it’s my parents’ home, but then I have been coming here and I realise this is where I am going to retire, so I will make a transition,” he said.

Wilson’s schoolmate, Dan O’Leary, disclosed that one of their teachers, Ted Smith, regularly attends their Friday evening meetings. He attributes their philanthropic nature to that teacher.

“The teacher that changed our lives when we were 14 years old is a man named Ted Smith. He is still alive. On Fridays at 4:30 pm we still meet. He is still teaching us even though we are grown men. He is still active at 85 years old.

“During the anti-apartheid struggle he was the one who taught me – introduced me to black consciousness. He had me read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Now when you read that at 14, it changes you. And we started thinking, and once you start thinking you don’t stop and so it’s really attributed to him. We are just big boys.

“We met there in the 1970s. The school opened in 1958. Academics was way more important than athletics, and they taught us about social justice. It wasn’t just reading and writing; they taught us about what was going on with the issues of the day so participate, give back, help out all your lives. So we now have the time so that is what we are doing here,” he disclosed.

Mayor of Falmouth Councillor C Junior Gager expressed his gratitide to the Neil McNeil High School alumni.

“What they have contributed today will go a far way because it will help with the hospital, it will help with the drop-in centre, it helps with the infirmary. So things that we are short [of] or [which] are needed, we do get them from time to time. Today there are two suitcases, and we are more than happy and appreciate their friendship and we to want it to develop and to grow,” Gager said.

He said he was looking forward to the blossoming of the relationship between the Canadians and the Trelawny Municipal Corporation.

“This is not their first trip; they did it three years ago. They are trying to make it a regular thing and they are recruiting others to be a part of this so sometime next [this] week when they get back, we will be going on a Zoom meeting with them. They are about 50 retired professionals that really want to give back so they will be having that meeting and they will be organising a trip to Jamaica,” Gager said.