THE community of Choiseul is thankful to the Sandals Foundation for their generous gift of musical instruments for the development of a music centre in Choiseul. This gift came via a proposal by the Sandals Team Member Project, which was submitted by Marsha King, Training and Development Manager at Sandals Grande. The Sandals Team member Project is an initiative of the Sandals Foundation to encourage team members to identify small projects that would benefit their communities. Team members submit proposals for these projects every year, out of which a winner is chosen from each Sandals Resort.
Although the handover ceremony of the musical instruments was held in January, residents from the community of Choiseul continue to express gratitude for the benefits this initiative will continue to bestow upon the youth in the community. With Choiseul being the home to over a thousand students from ages 5 to eighteen, King is adamant that the development of a music centre will benefit scores of aspiring young musicians. The music centre will provide an avenue for all interested students to receive vocal training and to learn one of three instruments; the keyboard, the guitar or the drums.
King said, “I was the winner of the team member project and I am elated. My company sees this as an opportunity to keep to its commitments and reach out to communities to enhance the lives of the people within those communities. This also gives our students from Choiseul an opportunity to learn a musical instrument, and targets students from all over Choiseul.” She added, “I see this as a great initiative that will benefit the aspiring young musicians from Choiseul. We are very thankful and look forward to continuing partnerships with the Sandals Foundation for the future development of our children.”
In relation to the music centre, Aineel Stanislaus, a second form student from the Choiseul Secondary School and a participant in the school’s music programme remarked, “I am extremely excited because music is a passion of mine and I love to see the community receiving instruments to further the students’ knowledge. It means a lot; it means that students will not be idle around the road. I really love music.”
Meanwhile, McArthur Phillip, Chairperson of the Choiseul Music Centre, is elated for the gift of the musical instruments. He said, “It is a concept we developed over ten years ago and we have been struggling to get support for the programme. We wanted to continue the after school programme to enhance whatever the children do at school so this donation from Sandals Foundation is very important to us.”
On behalf of the Sandals Foundation, Public Relations Manager Rhonda Giraudy stated, “We were happy to bring this project to Choiseul through our team member Marsha. Normally, projects are capped at just over EC$6,000.00. We are very excited for 2020 because we have increased the amount to just over EC$8,000.00 per project. Team member projects have been submitted for 2020 and are at the approval stage presently.”
