JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — Hundreds of families in the parish have benefited from a back-to-school treat organised by three of Jamaica’s major utility providers.

Chief executive officer at Digicel Foundation Charmaine Daniels said the event, which was held at the BB Coke High School last Friday, was supported by the utility companies to assist needy families.

“We partnered with some of our utility partners to put on this back-to-school [treat],” said Daniels.

She noted that the partners included Food For the Poor Jamaica, Flow Foundation, Digicel Foundation, and JPS Foundation.

“We know that the parish has been going through a lot since Hurricane Beryl and we just wanted to do what we can to give back as we prepare for back-to-school. At the Digicel Foundation we have backpacks for the children with school supplies. We also gave out credit and some prizes,” said Daniels, who pointed out that phone charging stations were also made available for the residents.

Daniels said although Digicel Foundation has faced setbacks in building two smart rooms in St Elizabeth to enhance the learning experience for children, the organisation remains committed to the task.

“The work we do in St Elizabeth is so important to us. The week before the hurricane we were about to start two smart rooms in this parish. One at Santa Cruz Primary and one at Black River Primary. As you know by now, Black River Primary was damaged,” she explained.

“We are waiting for that to be fixed to start the smart room there. Santa Cruz has been started and we are hoping to have it ready in about six week’s time for the students when they go back to school,” she added while outlining that the initiative is a part of Digicel Foundation’s 20th anniversary flagship project.

“We hope to have and we will have 20 by the end of the year. Right now we have 10 that are completed, six that are happening and we have another four that we are looking at doing to complete and round-up the project,” added Daniels.

For her part, senior vice-president for customer experience and commercial at JPS, Pia Baker, outlined that the back-to-school fair was a continuation of the utility companies coming together to aid in the restoration of the parish.

“We depend on the services of Digicel and Flow to get our networking done internally as well as being able to provide support to our grid, and likewise we power their towers and cell sites. So, this is not the first time we are having the partnership but what we have done is ramped it up,” she said.

According to Baker, while the company continues to work to restore power to the parish, “we want to be able to provide some parallel support to the residents of St Elizabeth”.

In the meantime public relations manager for Flow, LeVaughn Flynn, underscored the importance of the entities coming together to help the citizens.

“[Back-to-school] is one of the critical moments for parents. As August rolls into September the bills pile up [as they have to] get uniforms, text books and so on. So, all three foundations came together, and we are each contributing something to these families that will help to ease the burden of back-to-school,” Flynn said.

Last month, all three foundations also came together to give care packages to residents in sections of St Elizabeth.