Former ward gives back to Maxfield Park Children’s Home

Growing up at Maxfield Park Children’s Home since age five was an experience that made all the difference for Treniel Lowe.

Now, the 24-year-old, final-year University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) hospitality and food service management student is giving back to other children at the State-run facility.

After a concerned neighbour found him and his two older brothers, mere toddlers at the time, alone at home for over 24 hours and called the police, Lowe and his siblings were taken from their struggling single mother and placed in State care.

“According to the officer from CDA [Child Development Agency], my mother left us at home unsupervised for a period of time and somebody that lived next door called the police who came and took us. When I spoke to my mother about what happened, she did admit to leaving us, but she said that she only intended to be away for a short period of time. She said she went somewhere and she fell ill and she ended up staying for long than she intended,” Lowe told the Jamaica Observer on December 3 during one of his daily sessions assisting children at the home doing online classes.

What was possibly an unfavourable circumstance — being weaned from his mother at such a young age, and put in a new environment — proved to be the opposite for young Lowe. He credits his development and academic achievements to his years living at the children’s home.

“Often times, when kids are placed in a home people think that it is the end of the world for them. But it’s not. Maxfield Park was my foundation. It was my experience at this home that shaped me into the person I am today, because they are the ones who put me on the path that I am on now,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“It is only right for me to give back in whatever way I can. Education, for me, is very important and I can relate to these kids because I grew up here. So, I choose to give back my time and abilities to help them because I used to be one of them.

“Although I am in my final year at UTech, right now I am not as occupied with school, so I’m here helping the children with online learning. And with COVID disrupting school, I knew I had to give of my time to help out. It’s been challenging, but we are doing the best that we can,” he said.

Faced with the prospect of not having any family support once he left the home, education became the main focus for the aspiring hotel manager. After graduating from Mona High School with seven subjects, Lowe decided to pursue a bachelor’s degree in food service and production management.

“The focus was always on education from I went to the facility, so it was not the end of life. They continued my development as a person. And when I learnt that I didn’t have my biological family around, I figured that I should make the best of the opportunity to get an education and not follow the pattern that my mother did, which led to me and my brothers ending up in a children’s home,” he related.

“Education was the way forward, and I knew that I had to do well in school in order to help myself. I knew that my family could not support me and give me everything that I would have needed in life, and Maxfield provided me with the means of attaining certification,” Lowe said.

Having dedicated much of his time to volunteering at the home, Lowe now serves on the board of directors as a programmes coordinator. His training in hospitality led him to create the Maxfield Park Taste Competition, to give children at the home the opportunity to learn the crucial life skill of cooking, something which, he said, is a missing component for many people when they leave the facility.

“This is something that I realised growing up as a child there, that even though we were given three meals a day, learning how to cook for ourselves was not enforced. So I initiated that competition to teach the children how to cook, which is a life skill they will have when they leave the facility,” he explained.

“Right now, this is how I give back. But as soon as I’m finished with school and in the working world, I know that my giving back will be on a much larger scale.”