FRANKFIELD, Clarendon – National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCB) on Friday, May 6 presented a cheque of $200,000 to Edwin Allen High School’s girls’ 4×100 metre team which set a new world high school record in winning the event at last month’s Penn Relays.

The cheque was part of NCB’s sponsorship of the schools Track and field team which traveled to the Penn Relays, April 28 -30.

Jermaine Harris, Principal of Edwin Allen, which captured their ninth consecutive girls’ athletic championship, was elated for the support from NCB.

“The school has gone through a huge financial deficit resulting from the fallout from COVID-19. Though the students have returned, many programmes have suffered, including sports. So this was a very welcome donation from NCB, and one which really fuelled our girls as they traveled to Pennsylvania to represent our school and Jamaica, and did so to tremendous effect, as they now own the 4x100M record for high school girls around the world,” Harris said.

In addition to smashing the 4X100m record for high school girls, Edwin Allen was also able to capture three gold medals out of a possible four during their trip to the Penn Relays, April 28–30, 2022.

Nepaul Knight, Branch Manager, NCB Junction, was on hand to make the handover and expressed the pride which was felt for the partnership as it stands to help our national junior athletes in their pursuit of becoming world class athletes.

“I am very proud of this initiative as we have a chance to support and help the development of young student athletes at a grassroots level,” he said.

“This is where and when they really need our support as corporate entities. This time around, we are able to see the results quickly, as the Edwin Allen girls put on a show at the Penn Relays for the entire Jamaica to enjoy. So this is a partnership for the future and one which we hope to continue as our young student athletes continue to do well on and off the track,” Knight added.

In addition to the cheque handover, National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited also spent the day providing financial literacy tips and training for teachers and administrators at the school.

The 2022 NCB Tertiary Scholarships and Grants Programme is open to any Jamaican students accepted into an accredited local institution and pursuing undergraduate programmes in areas such as software development and engineering, user experience design, robotics and biotech engineering, animation and video game development, cybersecurity, data science and analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and others.

Since its 2008 launch, the Scholarships and Grants Programme has invested over $835 million in education, benefiting close to 9,500 students.