The JEPF Leadership Training Center in Jamaica

Why a Building, and Not Just Another Program

Handing out supplies helps, and it runs out. The books get used. Next year the same student needs the same help. Covering exam fees keeps a child in school for one more term. It does not tell them what to do when school ends for good.

A building changes that. Somewhere that is still open next year. Staff who know your name. Something that keeps going after the last day of school. That is what we are trying to pay for.

What the Center is Intended to Provide

Six things young people keep needing, and almost never find in one place:

• Leadership. Learning to organize something, make a call, and be responsible for more than yourself.

• Schoolwork. Carrying on the supplies, scholarships, and school support we already provide.

• Mentors who stay. An adult who is still there in six months, not one who visited once for a photo.

• Personal skills. Confidence, habits, and self-management. Without these, the rest does not hold.

• Getting ready for work. The stretch between the last day of school and a first real job is where most young people get lost.

• Giving back. The young people we train should end up helping the community they came from.

Where the Project Stands Today

We are raising money. Nothing is built. No ground has been broken. We are not going to dress up progress that has not happened.

What is real is how it gets paid for. Every festival ticket, every business in our supporter directory, every sponsorship, every donation. All of it goes to the programs we run now and to this building. That is why a foundation focused on Jamaica runs festivals in Maryland.

When there is a site, a cost, or a date, we will put it on this page. Not before.

How You Can Move it Forward

Four ways to put money behind it. They are the same four that pay for everything else we do.

• Donate. Once, or monthly. Tell us if you want it set aside for the center and we will do that.

• Sponsor it as a business. Larger gifts tied to the project are handled directly, not through the standard listing fee.

• Join the supporter directory. One contribution, and your business stays listed all year.

• Come to a festival. Ticket money is a real part of how this gets built, not a side event.