JSIF grant a godsend, says recipient

Fourteen small business operators of Treadlight in Clarendon benefited from $2.2 million worth of equipment to enhance their businesses, courtesy of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF).

The grant-award ceremony was held at the Versalles Hotel in May Pen on Friday.

The initiative, facilitated under the Integrated Community Development Project II (ICDP-II), saw a total of seven communities and 511 small business owners across the island benefiting from equipment support.

Omar Sweeney, JSIF’s managing director, told The Gleaner that the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need to invest in entrepreneurial ventures.

“Even a year ago, we were not so much looking at entrepreneurship grants as an intervention, but one of the things that came with COVID is that as we were in communities, we realised that small business operators were suffering and that was when we envisioned this programme,” said Sweeney.

He noted that Friday’s handover was not the first equipment support to entrepreneurs, but said, however, it catered to more beneficiaries as opposed to phase one of the project.

“With a small investment, you can keep the local economy of the communities strong. The local economy has become stronger since COVID. People are in the communities more, and people are also depending on local businesses, and local businesses are looking to support their community needs also,” he added.

Secretary of the Treadlight Youth Community Club Benevolent Society, Polly Anna Bailey, lauded the JSIF, stating that the entity’s contributions over the last six years have yielded countless benefits in the community.

“Thank you, JSIF, for allowing Treadlight to be on the map. Thank you for allowing Treadlight to be the place to live, raise families and do business,” she said in her address.

Twenty-three-year-old Nicolus Grant, the youngest among the beneficiaries, beamed after receiving the donation of a deep freezer and a water tank. Grant, a poultry farmer, told The Gleaner that he ventured into poultry farming two years ago after resigning his job at a bakery, citing safety concerns. “The hours I was working was too early. I had to leave home like 3 o’clock in the morning, and the community is not a good place at times. I was sometimes scared, and so I quit my job and decided to raise some chickens instead,” said Grant.

OPERATING WITHOUT A FREEZER

He noted that not having a freezer had put a dent in his business, and he cited cases where he lost several pounds of meat because the market was not readily available to take it off his hands and he had no where to store it.

“Sometimes when I kill the chickens and don’t have the buyer same time, I would have to ask people to put them up for me, and sometimes some even spoil. Right now, I won’t lose any more chickens,” said Grant.

Dwayne Lawrence of Treadlight Farms, who described the donations as “godsend gifts”, basked in his team’s blessings of receiving a mist sprayer, water pump, a multifunctional weed whacker, roll drip tapes and water pressure pump. He said the equipment will increase production on the three-and-a-half-acre farmlands that primarily produces sweet potatoes.

“We didn’t have a mist sprayer and didn’t have a weed whacker, so we used a cutlass, which takes up the whole day. We had a pressure pump, but not enough to do the three and a half acres of land, so with these equipment we’ll be moving at a faster pace and producing more, ‘cause we can water more efficiently because of JSIF,” said Lawrence, who cited financial woes in acquiring the much-needed resources.

Forty-nine-year-old Metchel Harrison, who operates Metchel’s Authentic Cushions and Mask-Making, was gifted an industrial sewing machine and an industrial serger. “I only had one domestic machine, so I wanted an industrial machine, but they are very expensive and I couldn’t afford one. With these, now I can go faster,” shared a grateful Harrison.

She told The Gleaner that with her new equipment, she will be able to double her weekly output of 50 items, and she is also looking into employing one or two persons to help with her business.