Pencils 4 Kids expanding opportunities for St Bess’ Quickstep
Published:Friday | March 22, 2024 | 12:08 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
QUICKSTEP PRIMARY and Basic School in St Elizabeth is now the envy of many other institutions in the parish, following a recent retrofitting with a state-of-the-art play area which rivals playgrounds at First-World institutions.
The latter was the vision of Randy Griffiths, founder of the United States (US)-based charity organisation Pencils 4 Kids.
Griffiths, a professional fitness trainer and native of St Elizabeth now living in New York, flew to Jamaica recently along with his team of donors and volunteers, as part of an annual mission trip.
Over the years, they have carved out a niche of ‘getting things started and getting it done’.
The playground includes running area, swing, climbing bars, see-saw and slides, among other amenities.
“To purchase the stuff and ship it here, for the cost of this initiative, we’re looking at somewhere in the region US$90,000 for everything from scratch. The most important cost was getting the tractor and labour to level the place and acquiring the marl. We got the playground stuff on Amazon and shipped to Florida, then to here,” Griffiths told The Gleaner.
Pencils 4 Kids has been assisting the community through various initiatives for the past 16 years.
The Gleaner has been invited to the space on previous occasions and witnessed first-hand how Pencils 4 Kids has changed the aesthetics of the community and enhanced education as a beacon of hope for future generations.
They have built an entire school from foundation, built a library, started a school feeding programme based on self-reliance farming, and bought a school bus so that children in Quickstep can get to and from the institution safely and in a timely manner.
Griffiths said the cost of transportation in deep rural communities is among the reasons many children don’t attend school regularly.
Alecia Gilzene-Black, principal of Quickstep Primary and Basic School, told The Gleaner that the effort and involvement of Pencils 4 Kids have been tremendous over the years.
“It’s an overwhelming feeling in the sense that that section where the playground is located, it was a rough surface. Due to the inspiration of the newly built basic school, we knew we needed a playground and Pencils 4 Kids came on board and took the initiative and run with it like wildfire. There was a great need for the students to have structured play,” Gilzene-Black said.
She told The Gleaner that it is a well-known fact that children learn through play.
“With this playing field, we realise that we’re going to have children who are learning 21st century skills, communication, collaboration, critical thinking and developing creativity through play. So it is an overwhelming feeling to have such a structure in our neck of the woods,” Gilzene-Black said.
She also shared that, in the beginning, Pencils 4 Kids started out with books and pencils and has now evolved to infrastructure that will stand the test of time.
Students also showed their approval for the new playground.
Katalia Grey, 11, a prefect at Quickstep Primary and Basic School, said that the playground is the biggest project she has witnessed so far from the charity organisation.
“I feel amazed about this project,” Grey, a grade six student, told The Gleaner.
Multipurpose sports complex
The latest project is part of a greater initiative, a multipurpose sports complex, which is being built by Pencils 4 Kids. Actually, it forms Phase One of the project.
Griffiths told The Gleaner that they wanted to start with the kids first, then move on to the community by building a cricket pitch, a track, and playing field for football.
He told The Gleaner that they may have an issue with the government land, which has been untouched and forgotten for more than 40 years.
“We are looking at anywhere between three to five years to complete. It is going to take a lot of money. The playground itself is almost US$100,000, so to outfit the mini stadium is gonna cost at least a half a million. It gonna take time,” Griffiths said, adding that he has reached out to corporate Jamaica for assistance but hasn’t yet had any success.
Notwithstanding, he intends to do take the necessary steps because he is firmly against seeing the land sitting idle for another 40 years while the community craves for its use.
Griffiths said 99.9 per cent of his donors are from overseas.
“Once we started at the basics, giving books, then Pencils 4 Kids is gonna rise to building a school, which we have done, and now a playground, then reaching towards community development overall. You have to start from somewhere, then eventually we evolve to sponsorship and a bunch of other things,” he reasoned.
The charity is also currently paying it forward with sponsorship of overseas college education for two past students of Quickstep Primary.
“There is always an invitation for the government, corporate America and Jamaica to come on board. We gonna do what we have to do but it would be great if they are on board with us,” Griffiths said.
Earlier this year, a similar playground initiative was carried out by the Kiwanis Club of Trafalgar at the Corporate Area-based Half-Way Tree Primary School.
Some 1,000 students have benefited from the fully equipped playground where they have been engaging in fun and play while developing their physical and mental health.
Their multi-million dollar initiative aims to build and upgrade playgrounds at primary and early childhood schools across the Corporate Area.