Moon Palace Foundation awards $1.1m in grants to PEP performers
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Rickaysia Powell accepts her grant from Moon Palace Vice-President Clifton Reader. Powell, a graduate of Priory Primary School in St Ann, will begin studies at Iona High School in September.
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Renesha Anglin accepts her grant from Moon Palace Vice-President Clifton Reader. Anglin, a graduate of Port Maria Primary School, will begin studies at St Mary Technical High School in September.
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Cataleya Wilson accepts her grant from Moon Palace Vice-President Clifton Reader. Wilson, a graduate of Camperdown Primary School in St Ann, will begin studies at Ocho Rios High School in September.
Thirty-eight students who excelled in the 2026 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations have received grants totalling $1.1 million from the Moon Palace Foundation, the charitable arm of Moon Palace Jamaica All-Inclusive Resort. The sum represents an increase on last year’s allocation.
The recipients are drawn from several primary schools in St Ann and will attend high schools across St Ann, St Mary and Trelawny.
The schools include Ocho Rios, St Hilda’s, York Castle and Ferncourt in St Ann; Marymount, St Mary High, St Mary Technical and Iona in St Mary; and Westwood in Trelawny.
Clifton Reader, vice-president of Palace Resorts Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands, said the initiative reflects a commitment to investing in the nation’s future workforce.
“We’re just making sure that we invest in the youth now because, in a couple of years’ time, they will be the ones becoming our employees at every level,” Reader told The Gleaner.
“The education has to start now that the traditional jobs in hotels are not necessarily the ones they’re going to come into. Take for instance, I do not have a laundry man running around with a wrench or anything like that anymore, I have technicians who are qualified electronic technicians; so that’s where we’re going to make sure that the new skills are filled by younger people who are well educated, well trained,” he added.
Under one category, five students each from Ocho Rios, Breadnut Hill and Parry Town primary schools received grants. In another category, children of the resort’s team members were among the beneficiaries.
The grants ranged from $20,000 to $80,000 and will assist students as they transition from primary to secondary school.
Explaining the programme for employees’ children, Moon Palace Foundation General Manager Natalie Boreland said recipients are selected based on their PEP results.
“What we do every year, our team members submit to us the PEP results the children would have gotten and we award the scholarship based on their scores,” Boreland said.
“We started off doing two boys and two girls, we transitioned to doing four girls and four boys, now we’re up to 20 students being awarded today. We’re going to start with the students with the highest awards, and these students have $80K grants.”
Boreland said 38 is the largest number of students to receive awards since the programme began 11 years ago. Individual grant amounts have also increased, with the top award rising from $60,000 to $80,000 for students who achieved scores of 3,350 and above.
The Moon Palace Foundation also provides grants worth millions of dollars annually to students pursuing tertiary education.
carl.gilchrist@gleanerjm.com