Ava­lene Har­ris

"Is this Courts from back home?" a woman with a dis­tinc­tive Caribbean ac­cent asked af­ter she en­tered the brand new Courts store. When she re­ceived a re­sound­ing "yes" she replied: "What they do­ing here?" To her and many oth­ers in the busy Ja­maica Av­enue shop­ping dis­trict, this was a com­plete sur­prise that Courts, the Caribbean's largest fur­ni­ture, elec­tron­ics and ap­pli­ances re­tail­er, set up shop in Queens, New York, giv­ing them a di­rect con­nec­tion to home.

The woman then found out that cus­tomers could pur­chase fur­ni­ture in the US and it would be de­liv­ered the next day to their re­spec­tive coun­try."So you can shop here as though you are home?" she queried, re­ceiv­ing a nod of ap­proval for her bril­liant anal­o­gy."I am late for work, but I will be back!" she de­clared, be­fore hur­ry­ing off to her nurs­ing job.

The sec­ond Courts branch in New York was un­veiled near the col­i­se­um, off Ja­maica Av­enue. Uni­com­er, the own­ers of the chain of stores wants the new lo­ca­tion to com­ple­ment and build up­on the ex­ist­ing pa­tron­age es­tab­lished in Flat­bush, Brook­lyn, which opened in 2008.

The open­ing was her­ald­ed with a host of ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the open­ing week­end, in­clud­ing spe­cials for cus­tomers, an in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny of­fi­ci­at­ed by Rev Calvin McIn­tyre, and at­tend­ed by Lennox Price, con­sul gen­er­al of Bar­ba­dos; Jean Alexan­der of the West In­di­an Amer­i­can Car­ni­val As­so­ci­a­tion; sen­a­tor Kevin Park­er; Gil Fi­garo, pres­i­dent of the Sun­shine Awards; vet­er­an Sil­via Jor­dan, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Courts/Uni­com­er, oth­er VIPs, and the me­dia.

At the rib­bon cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny, ten-year-old cre­ative dancer, Grenade, of Ja­maican de­scent, per­formed to a med­ley of Michael Jack­son hits-a stun­ning rou­tine that made him a three-time-cham­pi­on on Am­a­teur Night at the Apol­lo.

On No­vem­ber 12, shop­pers were well en­ter­tained, in­formed and at­tract­ed to the new store cour­tesy of a six hour live broad­cast by Irie Jam Ra­dio, WVIP 93.5FM, host­ed by DJ Roy and the Dub­mas­ter, with guests com­men­ta­tors in­clud­ing Aubrey Camp­bell.

Courts lived up to its rep­u­ta­tion as a proac­tive com­mu­ni­ty based in­sti­tu­tion with an in­ter­na­tion­al reach. At the un­veil­ing of the new store, Sil­via Jor­dan, a 92- year-old US vet­er­an of Ba­jan an­ces­try was ho­n­oured.She was al­so giv­en a re­clin­er. In Bar­ba­dos the fur­ni­ture gi­ant is a strong sup­port­er of ed­u­ca­tion, with its spon­sor­ship of el­e­men­tary school spelling con­tests. To date it re­mains the main pro­mot­er of the Na­tion­al Spelling Con­test.

In St Vin­cent, Courts is the main spon­sor of el­e­men­tary schools and the re­new­al of the foot­ball res­i­den­cy in Ja­maica, three years in a row. It al­so threw its weight be­hind the 2007 Spe­cial Olympic Games held in Chi­na.The Courts chain is al­so a big sup­port­er of bas­ket­ball in Ja­maica hand­ing out mul­ti­ple awards for the Ju­nior Di­vi­sion tour­na­ment. Like­wise, In T&T, Courts has spon­sored the lo­cal pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball league and the con­struc­tion of a school for hand­i­capped chil­dren.

The com­pa­ny has giv­en do­na­tions to na­tion­wide foun­da­tions to en­rich and im­prove the lives of the home­less.In Guyana, Courts has spon­sored a Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty hous­ing project for un­der­priv­i­leged fam­i­lies. The chain has al­so part­nered with the lo­cal food pro­gramme for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren. And in Be­lize, the com­pa­ny do­nat­ed mat­tress­es to vic­tims of Hur­ri­cane Dean in 2007. It al­so of­fers on­go­ing sup­port to the Red Cross and the Sal­va­tion Army in their ef­forts to pro­vide re­lief to vic­tims of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.