FOUR months into 2025, the usually violence-plagued community of Grants Pen in St Andrew has recorded only one murder up to Sunday, and stakeholders, including the police, have high hopes that the number will not increase.

To build camaraderie and maintain the peace, the various stakeholders came together on Easter Sunday to host a football competition in the community, bringing together Grants Pen residents from east, west, north, and south.

The top three teams shared in a total of $100,000 of prize money, with $50,000 going to the winner, $30,000 to second place, and $20,000 to the third-place finisher.

The inaugural football competition, the brainchild of the community-based organisation Palmer’s Care Foundation, brought together a total of 18 teams, comprising of players who were, at varying times, in conflict with each other. Members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force from its police station in Grants Pen also fielded a team for the competition.

Even dancehall entertainer Mluleke Tafari Clarke, popularly known as Jahshii, who is from Grants Pen, came out to support the initiative.

Inspector Levan Girdon, commander for the Grants Pen police in the St Andrew North Police Division, expressed full support for Sunday’s initiative, which, he said, is just one of the many activities helping to maintain peace.

“In terms of murders, there is only one murder so far since the start of the year. It was more of a domestically related matter, where a tenant [allegedly] killed his landlord. It wasn’t a gun-related murder, but one murder is still too much,” the inspector told the Jamaica Observer.

Gordon shared that, in 2024, Grants Pen recorded 12 murders.

“What we have here today is a community initiative involving the police and valuable stakeholders. This is just one of our social intervention programmes that we use to engage youths, in particular. Based on the structure of the community, over time, there has been countless cases of crime and violence over the years, especially gun-related murders. Crime has reduced significantly.

“What we realise is that youths are the main people involved in crime and violence, so we take the initiative to ensure we engage the youth, in particular. I commend the stakeholders who have seen the value of their social responsibility to be a part of this; we support this event.

“We have other events like this. This is one of the many that we will be embarking on and we have seen where we have reaped great success. I want to say thanks to all the stakeholders involved in this today,” Gordon said.

Marvin Palmer, chief executive officer and founder of Palmer’s Care Foundation, said he launched the football competition because when there is peace in the community, everyone is happy.

“When there is no violence, things are nice. This helps foster unity, to bring us together as a community to bond and get to know each other well, so we can move forward and rebuild. Things are very smooth at the moment, there is no violence. We are coming from a community of violence to a community that is non-violent at the moment; we wish to sustain this competition and what we would like to do is ask more sponsors to come on board so we can do this annually and even quarterly. Together we’ll build our community,” he said.

Proud to see the high-spirited, healthy competition on Easter Sunday was dancehall entertainer Jahshii.

“The energy is right. We are bringing togetherness to the community. I am out and holding the right vibes. Some of my friends who I grew up with and haven’t seen in a long while, everybody forward out as one. Nothing out of the way is happening. If you look, you can see everybody is holding a positive energy,” Jahshii told the Observer.

Meanwhile, Jahshii’s cousin, Rochelle Gilzene, said that, based on how violent and tense the atmosphere can get in Grants Pen, the community is “experiencing good times now”.

“As you know, the community sometimes has flare-ups [of violence]. Too long we have been reactive, so now we are using a proactive approach to reach the youths and impact the community, giving them other options than the negative influences. This is very important for us because the aim is to get Grants Pen to be a model community. We are using sports as a medium to reach the youth because we know that sports is very important to our young people,” she said.

“The last violent flare-up was around December, but since then the community has been fairly good and that is due to the good work of the Grants Pen Police Station in the St Andrew North Police Division. What we are doing today is not a one-off thing, we want this to be a sustainable event.

“We will be going out with the police to interact with the youths on the corners and in the streets. We are planning a series of on-the-corner street talks, pop-up stops, where we will stop at various sections of the community and we will also be using games as well, like dominoes and various activities.

“This one-day sporting event is funded by the Palmer’s Care Foundation in partnership with the St Andrew Upliftment Society of Jamaica. We have the Wake up Jamaica Team here, we have the Police Youth Club, and most importantly, we have the support of the St Andrew North Police Division, especially the Grants Pen police. Superintendent Randy Sweeney has really been a good partner in terms of community development, community policing, and youth empowerment and community development as well, and we have Inspector Gordon supporting us,” she added.

Up to press time Sunday, the competition was still ongoing.

Marlando Green (right) of Grants Pen gets some help from Inspector Levan Gordon (left), commanding officer of the Grants Pen Police Station, and president of the St Andrew North Up Lift Society group Rochelle Gilzene to make a kite. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Patrick Francis of Sweet Craft Football team battles with member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Darion Turndull (left) of the Grants Pen Police Station during a football competition in Grants Pen, St Andrew, on Sunday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Marvin Palmer (left), chief executive officer of Palmer’s Care Foundation, with Rena McCall of Renz Kitchen, one of the sponsors of Sunday’s football competition in Grants Pen, St Andrew. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Marvin Palmer (centre) of Palmer’s Care Foundation presents certificates to Siobhan Chong of Medstop Medical Services and Kelly Jumpp of St John Ambulance Services. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)