Shaggy & Friends Concert Raises $32 Million for Bustamante Hospital For Children [UPDATED WITH PICS]

The Shaggy and Friends concert staged on The lawns of Jamaica House on January 7, 2012 raised J$32 Million for the children of the Bustamante Hospital for Children. This was announced by Orville ‘Shaggy’ Burrell at the hospital this afternoon.

This year, the proceeds from the concert will help to furnish the new ICU/cardiac ward working in partnership with Chain Of Hope Jamaica, a group of volunteer doctors and nurses who perform surgeries each year on our children with heart problems. Over 500 children are born each year with heart defects.

Shaggy stated that “he was heartened by the outpouring of support this year by so many Jamaicans and pledges to continue to support this cause and encourages Jamaicans to do so as well.”

To Date The Shaggy Make a Difference Foundation has raised a total of $90 million for the hospital, and has covered the costs for an overall audit to be done on all medical equipment (working or otherwise) at the Bustamante Hospital (June – July, 2011). In addition, they donated 2 new fully equipped dental chairs for the dental unit at the hospital, as the existing unit was forced closed due to non functional dental chairs. The new chairs were delivered and installed earlier this year along with 378 pieces of medical equipment.

The Diamond selling entertainer’s involvement with the Bustamante Hospital dates back to 2001, when on visiting a friend’s son who had been admitted there, he was sufficiently moved by the needs of the institution to make a resolve to support them in any possible way. He spent the next eight or so years fulfilling that resolve in a personal way with periodic donations, a process that eventually led, in 2009, to the inaugural Shaggy & Friends “I Dare You” mega-event, the concert on the lawns of Jamaica House.

The lineup of sponsors for this year’s concert were LIME, Scotiabank, Wata , The Courtleigh Hotel & Suites, The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Stewart’s Auto Group, The Wyndham, Digicel, Restaurants of Jamaica, FLOW, Caribbean Airlines, Wray & Nephew, Phoenix Printery, CPJ, The Gleaner Co. Ltd., Jacqui Tyson’s From Thought to Finish, The Jamaica Observer, Get Caught Media, Ranch Entertainment, The Solid Agency, CVM TV, IPrint Digital, The RJR Group, MC Décor, Trutone, John Swaby, Zoukie’s, Kirdex, Truckback, Grizzly’s Entertainment, Phase 3, Best Dressed Chicken, Rainforest Seafoods, On Que Productions Ltd., The Atlas Group, New Era Fencing, Musical Choice, Sun Island, Starlight Productions, Lorraine Fong….Catering By Lorraine, Irie FM, Zip FM, Mega Jamz, Hype TV, Panache Entertainment, Image One, Brandon Allwood & Associates Ltd., Sagicor, Arm bands Plus, Caribtix, Alex Chin, Cool Oasis, Island Ice, Chocolate Dreams, Mc master’s Meats, Ellco Jamaica Limited and General Foods,Tru Juice, Hamilton’s Smoke House, ABE Baracat, Clean Up Services, Smoothie King, Truly FruitrageousChefs: Lorraine Clunie, Gariel Ferguson, Gairy Bowes, Great House Caterers, Courtliegh hotel, Daniel Gordon, Kyle Gooden, John comrie – Gourmet Delight, Irie Rock, Annette Salmon-Wallenford Coffee, Dennis McIntosh, HEART Trust NTA, Christian sweeny, Phillip Bunting, Saleem Lazarus

Event photos by Steve James