Steadfast in its belief that community interaction is a sure recipe for success, the newly formed ‘I Love MoBay’ Foundation will be bringing a lot of love –Disney love – to the Old Hospital Park, Montego Bay, this Friday.
The Foundation, which was formed earlier this year, and against the backdrop of all the problems that were plaguing St. James, especially in the tourism capital of Montego Bay, will be hosting a special screening of the Disney animated film ‘Zootopia’, which will be free for families.
The screening marks the start of a free-admission monthly movie series by the St. James-based non-profit organization.
According to chairman of the I Love MoBay Foundation, Douglas Gordon, the event falls under the organization’s five pillars for renewal of the city of Montego Bay.
“It is really to bring families together to have a really nice family night in Montego Bay that’s accessible to all and allows people to just come together… It will be held the last Friday of every month,” Gordon explained.
“We are going to give the first 300 children free popcorn. It is an open-air event; we will have bouncy castles and stuff for kids. There will be vendors selling hotdogs and popcorn and stuff like that there. We will bus in kids from three different communities – Mt. Salem, Norwood and Green Pond,” he added.
Gordon said apart from the monthly movie screenings, the Foundation has a large number of other social programmes set to be rolled out throughout the rest of the year under its five core pillars.
“We have five core pillars: education and mentorship; sports; entertainment, arts and culture, civic pride and environmental awareness… under which we have built the initiative. So we have different activities in each one of those pillars that will be rolled out in the next couple of months,” he said.
“We have a mentorship speaking series that we are going to roll out in partnership with Junior Achievement; we have a partnership with the MoBay United Football Club that we are going to roll out; we have a partnership with the Basketball Association; we have one with Gloves over Guns in boxing… that we are going to be rolling out in short order,” he stated.
The I Love MoBay Foundation was officially launched on February 8 this year. It aims to showcase, celebrate and engender pride in the city of Montego Bay.
Among the Foundation’s partners are Sandals Resorts, Billy Craig Insurance Company, itelBPO, the Spanish Court Hotel, OCEAN Style, Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, the Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica (BPIAJ), Sun Island, Mello FM, the Travel Foundation and Junior Achievement JA.