The United Vincie Cultural Group of Brooklyn (UVCGB) Saturday night expressed its “deep love and appreciation” to members and supporters at its annual holiday party at Miracle Temple Ministries in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
“This is our time to come together with members, spouses, volunteers and close friends,” UVCGB president Dr. Roxie Irish-Morris told Caribbean Life afterwards. “It is our moment to express our deep love and appreciation for the support we receive throughout the year.”
Dr. Irish-Morris, a youth minister at the Miracle Temple Ministries, an evangelical church, said that while 2019 was “very challenging” for UVCGB, “we made it.”
“God came through for us in a marked way,” said the former national netball star in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “So, to God be the glory for the great things He has done for us, in us and through us.”
Dr. Irish-Morris said the group looks forward to “this time of family, fellowship, food and lots of fun.”
She commended the group’s public relations officer, Judith “Baffy” Cuffy-Murray, who served as Mistress of Ceremonies, for doing “a wonderful job.”
“The laughter was real,” she said. “The game, ‘Price is Right’, was so much fun.”
Besides holding the audience in stitches, Cuffy-Murray, one of the group’s main actresses, paid tribute to late Vincentian calypsonian Lord Summers by singing his signature “Come Out in Yo Numbers.”
Perrie K. Allen told “the story of Christmas in song” in rendering “Birthday of a King”; Donna Ash sang “Jingle Bells”; and Pastor Cornelius Olive, of Trinity Apostolic Church on Pacific Street in Brooklyn, sang “I Wanna Do Thy Will.”
Pastor Olive then teamed up with three members of his church – Minister Erva Harold, Jael O’Garro and Waveney Depass – in singing “Christmas is not about Santa.”
Pastor Olive, who wrote that song, also played the Q-Cord.
Vincentians Naydine Bascombe and Lafleur Gumbs and Jamaican Emily Sykes sang an impromptu “Jingle Bell Rock.”
There were also Doo Wop entertainment, and presentation and gift exchange by UVCGB members, among other things.
Irish-Morris thanked Pastor Olive, who also opened the event with a prayer, and Minister Harold and “the ladies” from Trinity Apostolic Church, who supported UVCGB during November’s Tea Party.
She also expressed gratitude to those who traveled with the group to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for its medical mission in July.
In addition, UVCGB gave “a token of our gratitude” to each volunteer for their “commitment to serve with us”, Dr. Irish-Morris said.
“Now, it is a new year, and we believe that God’s blessing is on us,” she said. “We are looking forward to bigger and better things in 2020.”
During last November’s Tea Party, a Jamaican national, for the second successive year, was crowned the “Miss United Vincie Cultural Group of Brooklyn.”
Lillian Lettman, a Canarsie, Brooklyn resident, originally from St. Catherine in Jamaica, was adjudged “Best Dressed.”
Lettman edged out Barbadian Denise Callender (first runner-up) and another Jamaican national, Daisey Frith (second runner-up) to take the top spot.
The Tea Party also featured, among others things, models and renditions by the UVCGB Band.
Besides the annual Tea Party, Dr. Irish-Morris, said UVCGB also raises funds for its missions by hosting an annual Cultural Concert. It’s first concert was in 2003.
“Since we started, we already spent over US$50,000.00 in medical supplies,” she said, adding that, by 2018, all 40 clinics in St. Vincent and the Grenadines received medical supplies from the group.
