Retired American educators Joseph and Teresa Furnari who are currently vacationing at Sandals Grande Antigua Resort and Spa recently made a donation to the Greenbay Primary School, in honour of the memory of their dear friend, Antiguan educator Alfonse Ferris, who passed away recently in the United States of America.
The New York residents have been friends with the late Ferris for some 50 years both professionally through teaching and personally after he relocated to the United States where he earned a doctorate degree in Education and served as an administrator for several years in the state of New York.
“When he passed away two weeks ago, we thought it fitting since we were coming to Antigua that we would honour his legacy and contribution to education locally and internationally by donating to his alma mater Greenbay Primary School,” Joseph said.
On Friday, the couple along with Sandals Public Relations Manager Leon Norville journeyed to the educational institution where they met with the school’s principal Temika Christian to officially hand over a cash donation.
Christian was grateful to meet the couple and said, “The money donated will help us at this time especially since plans are in the pipeline to have sanitizing products purchased for each classroom as we look to increase efforts to keep our students and teachers safe during this covid- 19 pandemic.”
Before the couple’s departure from the school Christian presented them with a local Antigua souvenir- “A Little Bit of Paradise” which the couple plans to present to Ferris’s wife when they return home.
Teresa was moved by the entire experience and said, “I think it is very important particularly in these times when money is tight, and the technology needed for education is probably not as effective or existing across the globe, that we help wherever we can and in this case, make this donation to the school. We feel honoured that we could give a little back to what was important to our friend Al, rather than just make some gesture in terms of flowers or some other thing back home in the US. I know he is looking down and he is saying thank you Joe and Teri for supporting the place where he started his education.”
Sandals General Manager Matthew Cornall commended the couple and thanked them for their kind gesture. He said, “It is small acts of goodwill like these that helps create an impact within our local communities. Here at Sandals Grande Antigua we are always supportive of our guests who visit our beautiful island and choose to leave their mark, no matter how big, or how small, by supporting our residents and giving back to our communities.”
