The Foundation bears the name of the first community to benefit from our efforts.  In 2013, the management team of Kirk Distributors Limited (KDL), a company owned by Jamaican businessman and philanthropist, Glen Christian, was seeking to identify a meaningful community project in one of the low income communities nearby its offices.  In their discussions with representatives of Union Gardens, it emerged that the community was in dire need of a suitable early childhood learning facility.

Having successfully built the award-winning Evelyn Mitchell Infant School/ Centre of Excellence, in his home parish of Clarendon, Mr. Christian was confident that the project could be successfully replicated in Union Gardens.  He set about selling the idea to his peers in the business community and soon a small committee of business leaders came together.  One enthusiastic supporter of the project was Mr. Gary ‘Butch’ Hendrickson, Chairman of Continental Baking Company, who envisioned not only an infant school in Union Gardens, but similar schools across Jamaica based on the Evelyn Mitchell model of public-private sector partnerships.     

As a result, in 2014, the Union Gardens Foundation was established to guide the development of the Union Gardens Infant School project and similar initiatives. The Foundation is a duly registered charitable organization under the 2013 Charities Act.