Af­ter near­ly two decades op­er­at­ing from a retro­fit­ted ship­ping con­tain­er, the Parish of St Jude in Ari­ma is tak­ing steps to­ward re­build­ing its long-lost rec­to­ry with the help of a ma­jor fundrais­ing ef­fort this Moth­er’s Day.

On Sun­day, May 11, parish mem­bers and sup­port­ers will gath­er at the Bish­op Anstey East and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East Au­di­to­ri­um in Trinci­ty for “UN­FOR­GET­TABLE”, a con­cert or­gan­ised by the St Jude Help­ing Hands Com­mit­tee.

The event, which runs from 4 pm to 6 pm, will fea­ture per­for­mances by ac­claimed vo­cal­ist Vaugh­nette Big­ford and her ten-piece band, as well as young mu­si­cians David Web­ber (vi­o­lin), Aviel Scant­er­bury (steel­pan), and Wa­sia Ward (cel­lo). The dance group So­phis­ti­cats is al­so slat­ed to per­form.

The con­cert will be held un­der the pa­tron­age of The Right Rev­erend Claude Berkley, An­gli­can Bish­op of Trinidad and To­ba­go. All pro­ceeds will go to­ward the con­struc­tion of a new Rec­to­ry for St Jude’s—a project parish lead­ers said was cru­cial for restor­ing full op­er­a­tions to one of Ari­ma’s old­est re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions.

The orig­i­nal Rec­to­ry was de­mol­ished in 2007 due to struc­tur­al is­sues. Since then, the parish’s ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tions have been housed in a con­tain­er unit on church grounds. Al­though var­i­ous fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have been staged over the years, sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing is still need­ed to com­plete the project.

Found­ed in 1885, St Jude’s Church has long been a fix­ture of the Ari­ma com­mu­ni­ty. In ad­di­tion to its re­li­gious ser­vices, it es­tab­lished St Jude Col­lege in 1927, pro­vid­ing sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion to boys across de­nom­i­na­tions, and op­er­at­ed one of the coun­try’s ear­ly pen­ny banks to en­cour­age sav­ings among parish­ioners.

Tick­ets for the con­cert can be pur­chased through the St Jude Parish Of­fice (667-3656), the Trin­coll Box Of­fice (640-8685), or mem­bers of the Help­ing Hands Com­mit­tee at 791-7591, 394-2795, 360-0160, or 646-2793.

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion is avail­able via email at yvette.glen­da@gmail.com

Light re­fresh­ments and bev­er­ages will be avail­able for pur­chase, and se­cure park­ing will be pro­vid­ed. Door prizes will al­so be of­fered.