Multi-purpose community centre for Fruitful Vale

Gareth Davis, Gleaner Writer

FRUITFUL VALE, Portland:

ONE THOUSAND five hundred community residents will benefit from the upgrading of the Fruitful Vale/Shrewsbury playing field and community centre, for which a contract was signed recently.

The contract was signed between three state agencies, the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund and the Sports Development Foundation (SDF), who partnered in an unprecedented move to make the project a reality.

Project manager of Basic Needs Trust Fund Project at JSIF, Carl McKenzie, reiterated the agencies' commitment to community development and nation building.

"We are no strangers to Fruitful Vale," McKenzie said. "But now we are back to launch a project, which will see the provision of a facility that will ensure that residents in general, and the youth in particular, will have modern amenities for their use in pursuing sports, skills training, culture, and economic activities," he added.

Guest speaker and member of parliament (MP) for West Portland, Daryl Vaz, urged residents to safeguard and preserve the facility upon its completion, so as to prevent any chance of it falling into a state of disrepair.

"I gave a commitment more than a year ago. And that was to construct and upgrade the community centre, which once existed, and to build a multi-purpose court, along with the upgrading of the playing field," said Vaz. "This is the hometown of our governor general, the Most Honourable Patrick Allen, and there is no way I could show disrespect to such an honourable and distinguished person by not honouring my commitment," added the MP.

Project cost

Vaz noted that the facility will have to earn its keep and, therefore, a monitoring committee will have to be in place. The total project cost is $19,635,932.80, which will see JSIF providing $11,990,032.80 towards the project, while the community, which will be assisted by their MP, is to provide $7,645,000. The funding agency is the Caribbean Development Bank Community Investment Project.

Earlier, William 'Billy' Heaven, CEO of the CHASE Fund, noted that the agency has been actively involved in the construction of a number of community centre islandwide, including the Albert Town community centre in Trelawny, Barbrey Hall in St Elizabeth, and Rivers Dale in St Catherine.

"This is one of those flagship projects. This will be done as a community cultural centre," he said. "And as coordinator of this multi-agency response to this project, we will start this component of the project in November, and it should take only three to four months for completion," he added.

Terry Montague of the SDF said his agency first visited Fruitful Vale community more than a year ago to look at the Shrewsbury project, and that last week's occasion was a memorable one.

"Our job is to construct a multipurpose court with fencing," Montague said. "We are at the stage where we are looking into paving the court, and the contractor is on his way to commence that part of the actual work, along with the erecting of a perimeter fencing," he added.