THE Musgrave Market Fund is a step closer to its goal of $100 million following a donation of $1 million from quick service food giant Restaurants of Jamaica (ROJ), which is the owner and operator of the KFC and Pizza Hut franchises in Jamaica.

The money will go towards phase two of the Musgrave Market rehabilitation programme, which entails assisting more than 200 vendors in the historic Port Antonio, Portland market, to repurchase their goods which were destroyed in a fire.

“As soon as we discovered the severity of the damage and saw the call for donations, we knew we had to step in. We empathise with the vendors and this tremendous loss that they have experienced. The only positive was that no one had been harmed.

“We hope our contribution will positively impact the lives of those affected by the fire and help the Musgrave Market Fund achieve its ultimate goal of rebuilding the market and placing the vendors in an even better position,” said ROJ Brand Manager Andrei Roper.

The Musgrave Market Fund was launched for private investors to contribute to the rehabilitation of the market after it was destroyed by a massive fire on Sunday, May 28. More than 200 vendors were affected by the disaster.

“Many of our vendors lost everything after the unfortunate ordeal, so we quickly launched a Musgrave Market Fund to raise $100 million. We commenced phase one of the rehabilitation process by quickly raising $20 million, which was used to distribute compassionate grants of $100,000 to each vendor on June 2.

“Now that we have kick-started phase two, we are most appreciative of ROJ’s donation,” said director of the Action Ann Foundation, Gabrielle Wood.

“ROJ’s donation is coming at the right time, and we’re so grateful that they have decided to partner with us and so quickly at that. They have come on board to donate cash to assist in repurchasing the vendors’ goods as soon as possible and donate KFC meals. For this, our team and the vendors of the Musgrave Market are extremely thankful,” added Wood.

After quickly donating compassionate grants less than a week after the fire, the Musgrave Market Fund is now undergoing phase two of the programme. This phase includes assessing each vendor’s loss to tailor support and ensure each vendor can return to a state of normalcy as soon as possible.

“We applaud the team for quickly launching the Musgrave Market Fund and allowing us to partner with them to rebuild what was damaged. From what we can see, rehabilitation is well under way, and we look forward to supporting more initiatives such as these in any way we can,” added Roper.