The Bustamante Hospital For Children has once again received huge and meaningful donations courtesy of The Shaggy Make A Difference Foundation, a charitable organisation spearheaded by International Jamaican artiste Shaggy.
Shaggy presented a cheque valued $55 million Wednesday March 20 at the Hospital in St. Andrew all proceeds from the Shaggy and Friends concert held on the lawns of Kings House, January 2016.
Chairman of the hospital, Kenneth Benjamin, said so far, proceeds from biennial concerts have allowed the hospital to purchase over 450 pieces of medical equipment. As reported in the Jamaica Observer the chairman, at the handing-over ceremony said, “Over 77,000 children are treated at this hospital yearly. This is the only children’s hospital in the Caribbean, so we attend to children from the region also. Shaggy and his team have proven that they are all about making a change and not just another avenue for talk,” and has served children throughout the region.
This year’s proceeds will go towards several different ventures in the hospital, including the Intensive Care Unit which currently has a total of five beds — far fewer that the required amount.
Entertainer, Philanthropist and Director of Shaggy Make A Difference Foundation, Orville ‘Shaggy’ Burrell thanked all the performers and sponsors who supported the effort and said, “the figure we make is nothing compared to what we spent. What we make is a drop in the bucket to what we need; however we are grateful for all the support.”
This year the foundation partnered with iHeartRadio, which broadcast the event on 18 stations across the United States. Shaggy however made it known that with over 4 million Jamaicans living in the United States, they received little or no support from the natives, “there are over four million Jamaicans living in the United States, more than who live in Jamaica but the Jamaicans didn’t step up to do their part” he said. “We raised way less than we expected from them.” Mr. William Mahfood, Managing Director of Wisynco Group handed over a cheque valued ‘little over” over $8 million the Observer reported, from a $3 off every purchase of a ‘specially marked’ bottle of WATA drive in January where over 2 million bottles of WATA was distributed for the purpose. While new company, Stewart’s Auto contributed $1.5 million to the cause.
To date, The Shaggy Make A Difference Foundation has donated $255 million since it’s inception in 2009 to the facility.
NIPnews
Source: Jamaica Observer
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