Sterling Asset Management gives to United Way of Jamaica

Sterling Asset Management Ltd’s President & CEO Charles Ross presented a cheque to one of the island’s most high-profile grassroots charities, United Way of Jamaica.

Keisha M. Scott, deputy superintendent, Area 4 Civic Committee Chairman representative, began by memorably setting the upbeat tone before the customary morning prayer, quoting Malcolm X: “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

Of the J$500,000 cheque presentation, Ross stated: “I have watched the United Way of Jamaica’s growth since its conception in 1985 and have always admired its stated mission, ‘to mobilise resources to transform lives throughout Jamaica’.

“This, as we all know, is an ideal even more crucial in the unprecedented and challenging times that we continue to live through.

“This sentiment is one that I wholeheartedly support and endorse because I see many of the same ideals at Sterling Asset Management. In fact, the welfare and education of our less fortunate children has been at the core of our philanthropic activities for many years.

“In the same way that the United Way of Jamaica and the Area 4 Police Civic Committee have sought to provide a haven for the bright, younger generations of Jamaicans, we too have committed our company to do the same with the hard-earned investments and savings of our fellow citizens locally and in the diaspora.

“We have supported the United Way of Jamaica in the past and will continue to do so because of your organisation’s unrelenting focus on creating community-based and community-led solutions that help strengthen the foundations for a good quality of life: education, financial stability, and health. This is not just for the love of Jamaica but for the world,” Ross concluded.

Prior to the cheque handover, Wayne Wray of United Way Jamaica began by acknowledging Sterling’s 20-year anniversary, praising its continued business and growth, and briefly talking about the positive consequences of improving Jamaica through the work of United Way of Jamaica.

CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY

He emphasised the importance of ongoing social investment and community activism, particularly in these unprecedented times, beginning, “Civic responsibility is about caring first and then sharing.”

Relating his pride in the work of Area 4 and United Way of Jamaica, Wray also spoke of the central importance of his organisation’s work: ensuring that younger generations of Jamaicans are given sustainable alternatives to the attractions of crime and the short-term promises of ill-gotten gains.

“Our objective was simply just to get the kids to go to school and assist them in that,” he remarked. “These students were able to stay in school and excel. The policemen and women of Area 4 were able to encourage the students, and just as importantly – their parents – simply because these public officials were on the ground and were able to make that happen.

“Fighting crime remains an intricate and complicated matter and our men and women of the force at various levels work to make that happen, despite the daily challenges of their mission and limitations of their resources. And, often it is the case that the bigger wallets of organised crime can easily quadruple the investments that we – as good people – are putting into our youth,” he asserted.

He continued: “They can determine who will become a lawyer and accountant so that their business model survives. So, that is what crime-fighting is up against. It is a big corporate model that transcends our borders.”