He gives $65G for Jamaican students
For business owner Noel Spencer and many other Jamaicans living in the diaspora, thoughts of their island home — and their high school — are life-long focuses. Spencer has appealed to both these concerns by generously payng for the building of the Noel Spencer Family Interscholastic Fitness Center, due to open late next month on the Melbourne Campus of Kingston College.
An alumnus of Kingston College, a 93-year-old scholastic institution, Spencer foot the $55,000 bill required to build the fitness center, art classrooms and studios that make up the complex.
“We who gained so much from Kingston College have to give back to the institution so that it can better serve the needs of students and the wider community,” said Spencer, founder of the Spencers of Jamai- ca diversified financial service and a past president of the Kingston College Old Boys Association in New York.
In addition to the complex bearing his family’s name, Spencer said the art center at the site will be named for his uncle, Kenneth Abendana Spencer, a distinguished Jamaican artist who died in 2005.
The fitness center will complement a new state-of-the-art running track, finished last September. Spencer also contributed $10,000 to the completion of the track.
The new fitness center will serve more students than the current facility and the new track eliminates the need to use an off-campus facility.
Tribute to punta music great
The late punta music star Andy Palacio will be remembered on Saturday in Brooklyn in a concert at Long Island University’s Kumble Theater, 1 University Plaza (Flatbush Ave., between Dekalb Ave. and Willoughby St.), at 3 p.m.
“Watina Through Movement: A Tribute to Our Legend: Andy Palacio,” presented by J-Dove Productions, brings together a select lineup of performers to honor Palacio — the influential proponent of punta, a music of the African and Caribbean rooted Garifuna people of Central America. “Watina” was one of the most acclaimed albums from Palacio, who died in 2008.
The concert stars Andy Ordonez, the Garifuna Jazz Ensemble, Jamie Thompson, Maryam, Abdul Qawiyy, The JDove Dance Academy, Chief Joseph Chatoyer Garifuna Folkloric Ballet of New York and others.
Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the show. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. Visit www.kumblethester.org for tickets or call the theater box office at (718)
488-1624.
‘AfroPoP’ returns
“Black Panther Woman,” Rachel Perkins’ documentary on Australian Black Panther Party member Marlene Cummins — following her through activism, art, addiction — opens “AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange” public television series tomorrow on World Channel at 8 p.m.
The series — in its 10th season — features an international assortment of documentary films examining immigration, social justice, the arts and more in the African diaspora.
Nicholas Ashe, star of the Oprah Winfrey Network television show “Queen Sugar,” is host for this year’s series.
Visit www.blackpublicmedia.org for more on AfroPoP other Black Public Media initiatives. For viewing information, check local listings or visit www.aptonline.org.
Last week’s Caribbeat column had an incorrect date for the screening of the film “Charcoal” at St. John’s University’s Manhattan campus, 101 Astor Place. The screening will be held Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. The News regrets the error.