West Bay church gets $450k from CIG for shelter
(L-R) DCFS Community Development Officer for West Bay Vanda Powery, HCCI Director, Dani Coleman, Deputy Premier André Ebanks, Pastor Stanwyck Myles, McKeeva Bush MP, MIISD Chief Officer Tamara Ebanks and DCFS Director Paulinda Mendoza-Williams 
The new building for the Church of God Chapel in West Bay
(CNS): The Church of God Chapel in West Bay has received a grant from the public purse of $450,000 towards the redevelopment of the church building, which will include an emergency shelter for 200 people from the surrounding community. The money has come from unused capital expenditure in the 2023 budgets of the social development and infrastructure ministries and is expected to help complete the project, which has been underway for many years but stalled due to increasing costs.
“Following structural damage caused by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the decision to rebuild was made possible through a combination of insurance proceeds, fundraising efforts, and support from a prior government more than a decade ago, reaching a commendable 60% completion,” according to a release from the Ministry of Investment, Innovation, and Social Development (MIISD), which supplied $300,000 towards the grant. The rest of the money ($150,000) was supplied by the Ministry of Planning, Agriculture, Housing and Infrastructure.
The church on Town Hall Road, located in McKeeva Bush MP’s constituency of West Bay West, received at least CI$350,000 from the controversial Nation Building Fund in 2010 and 2011 while Bush was premier.
However, the project is still far from complete and has languished while construction costs have gone up, the release said. The existing hall is 4,118 square feet, while the new partially finished building is 10,296 square feet, and the ministry said it is at a pivotal stage, with walls erected, hurricane-grade windows installed, a front glass door in place, lobby lights installed, and the roof of the lobby completed, but it is still without a main roof.
Since 2007, the church has pledged to use the new building as an emergency shelter in the event of hurricanes and other major disasters, and as a community centre where the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) can provide social programming for the residents of West Bay.
The church estimates that the new building, when operating as a shelter, can comfortably accommodate 200 people. The facility will have four restrooms, including two in the adjoining church hall, with seven toilets, two showers, a fully functional kitchen, and provisions for an on-site generator. A large cistern under the church hall ensures a reliable water supply, the ministry said.
The district of West Bay has grown considerably since the project began, making the need for the
building’s completion and the additional emergency shelter space it will provide all the more pressing. Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HMCI) Director Danielle Coleman explained the importance of the shelter.
“The completion of this project is crucial for West Bay, especially considering the limited availability of emergency shelters in the district, which currently only has capacity for 625 people. In times of heightened vulnerability during adverse weather events and other large-scale emergencies, the need for secure shelters cannot be overstated,” she said. “Hazard Management, in consultation with the Public Works Department, will be working with the church to ensure the new emergency shelter is built in accordance with international shelter specifications.”
Social Development Minister André Ebanks, who represents the church’s neighbouring constituency of West Bay South, described the grant as “a multi-purpose community investment” that provides “a meaningful contribution towards” an additional secure shelter in the district, additional space for social programmes, and beautification of the district.
The church aims to raise a total of CI$1 million to finish the facility and supporting infrastructure, and Ebanks said that the grant “should stimulate fundraising efforts by the church to bring the project to fruition”.
Pastor Stanwyck Myles thanked the government on behalf of the church and the congregation, saying the grant brought them “closer to realising our vision for a new building and reliable emergency shelter for the West Bay community”.
Local organisations, businesses and individuals who want to support this project can contact the Church of God Chapel in West Bay.
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Category: Local News
Maybe hell is real after all. Imagine being trapped in a church shelter with a chanting deranged congregation for 24 hours while a hurricane passes. I’d sooner face the winds and rain.
Bigoted fool.
How many of the supported churches opened their doors to the public in the passage and aftermath of Hurricane Ivan?!
Well, so now we know McKeewa was lying again about retiring. Else, why would he have purchased these votes? *shrugs*
Bullshit!
According to a quick google search there are over 200 churches in the Cayman Islands. I have no idea if this is accurate or not but it does seem that building yet another one is perhaps not the best use of limited public resources.
Figures don’t lie. Liars figure.
You, my poor dumb friend, did the figuring.
Cost to complete? So they have been trying to finish this project from 2007? The Church needs to raise $1million to complete?
What does the $450K accomplish?????
The timing is so convenient for McKeeva. Now that the former Premier is gone, 2 ministries found unallocated cash to assist with this???
Things that make you go hmmmm!!
Another horrific example of piss poor governance! There is no guarantee that this hall will be finished for another 20 years if at all so what benefit does CIG get – likely nada!
This is typical McKeeva BS but it is hugely disappointing to see Andre Ebanks being sucked into his cell pool! He knows better!
Did they ever account for where the previous grants for this project went?
And when does McKeeva announce that he’s going to stand again after all?
As I said earlier this debacle requires an audit. Take no prisoners Mrs AG.
As Cayman offers the constitutional right to freedom of religion and has made civil unions legal, I trust that CIG is also willing to provide 500k to the Muslim, Buddhist, and LGBT communities for their backup hurricane shelter funds.
Some of unna would literally pay to have Cayman governed like a taliban theocracy.
Preach
Churches and non-profit are the perfect Money Laundering machine.
Er I don’t think so.
If they spend donated money, it cannot be laundered. Cos they’ve spent it.
Sky fairy public funding in the Cayman Islands has to stop.
Anyone who thinks this is a one time subsidy is living in their own fantasy world. This is a gift that will have to keep on giving, and giving, and giving. The government will bear the cost of maintaining the structure into perpetuity courtesy of its hurricane shelter designation. Who else is going to pay for it? The Church of God couldn’t motivate its thinning congregation to fund the completion of the construction of the place even though the monstrosity stared them straight in the face every single day for years.
People who are actually in government are so far removed from the reality of most the people they represent. Perhaps before they got elected with a large monthly salary, you just know these politicians have never been in a situation where you have a choice between food or the electric bill or the anxiety that comes with even looking at your bank account when you know there is 8 days left till the end of the month and you and your family need to eat.
Politicians & their “controllers” make decisions that have never and will never effect them at any stage of there life as I’m sure if these “representatives” had to live of minimum wage for 3 months they would think twice about half the sh!t they come up with.
Absolutely disgusting.
This is not right! Both in Bodden Town and now West Bay, two Churches started to build huge Church Halls, the size of which could accommodate a great deal of the population! They will never learn to “cut your cloth according to your means”!
The idea of additional hurricane shelters is, sadly, a smoke screen.
I think it’s been well documented that the Bodden Town shelter was the government’s idea. It was government that converted the church’s plans for a small hall to a purpose built Category 5 hurricane shelter. That’s the history behind that partnership. It’s not built for the parishioners but for the use of the community- graduations, large funerals and social events.
Bodden Town despite having the second largest population and continuing to grow, has the least number of hurricane shelter spaces.
It’s unlikely the private sector will build a category 5 office block in Bodden town anytime soon which could potentially be co-opted during an emergency. And based on current construction costs, it’s doubtful government could build one of similar proportions on its own for under $25 Million.
Mervyn, you are so right.
Vote buying…
Hope they make their business case for the $s public.
Sums these islands up perfectly.
Keep the locals placated whilst the London uses us to stash its money here with plausible deniability.
Sums up you don’t know what you are talking about.
Will the waste of our money never end?
We need huge changes and fast.
Vote out all these old faces, replace them with young well educated and business minded people. Oh and honest too – that would be the best thing of all.
Brilliant. While your prison crumbles and overflows in front of your eyes.
Epic
Where is the business case?
I think it is time for this stuff to be audited.
As an ex auditor I would have had a field day.
There are more red flags here than at the annual meeting of matadors in Madrid.
probably more bullshit, too!
😂
True
Hope they are going to ask Macs jurors if they attend this church.
So many huge churches going up all over the place, so few real Christians ( as opposed to Old Testament Bible verse spouters). The gigantic one on Anton Bodden Drive in Bodden Town is disgraceful when you think of what positive use the money involved could be put to. Still, our Jamaican population need their churches and their pastors who get to be here without work permits.
No way this is using public money for vote buying… Guess the $5K per month ‘constituency’ fund was inadequate
If prayer works why is a hurricane shelter necessary?
Ask Noah.
That’s uncle Noah to you.
Well……the 2025 vote buying and sub-standard campaigning has begun. On the other hand, Big Mac gifting a church whilst on the cusp of a serious court trial. You just CAN NOT make the f**kery up. Oh, lest we forget, $150K given by Jay Ebanks (who probably cant even spell the word ‘church’ much less have attended church) Ministry whilst his former campaign manager is also about to stand trial.
Begun? They’ve done Civil Service, Health Service and Pensions and now the church. A timely NICE and they’re done with the entire electorate… and that’s just based on what we know about. SMH.
Yeah bobo, you said it!!! Knocking down church door prior to opening the courtroom door.
Good cause.
Good cause for those under the McKeewa umbrella.
LMAO Bushy’s ‘investment’ before Court
Apparently jury selection to take place .
Yep..McKeeva strikes again…
Shameless as always, sooner he goes away the better for Cayman.
Slushie time!
Should give them $5 million and let them build a school thereby saving us over $45 million.
Nation Building Fund 1.0 still running in the background.
As opposed to illegal kickback laden public works projects that wasted at least tenfold more money but your anti-religious views have blinded you to such facts.
In other words, you have a mountain of wasteful government spending you don’t seem concerned about but a crab mound you are bent out of shape with because local churches built basketball courts and hurricane shelter capability with.
Focus on the big picture and put your ideological biases aside so you can think logically.
a speck of sand in your eye can be just a irritating as anything else. we’re going to comment on all level of corruption and waste which includes building churches with the public money.
Just one Progressives high school wasted $100 million and now JuJu wants to waste another $50 million on an unnecessary school for non-existent students on the Brac.