PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – President of the Chamber of Commerce (COCI) Benjamin Ortega announced on Friday the 29th of November that the COCI will be adopting the seventh MPC classroom to be air-conditioned and powered by solar panels. The Chamber of Commerce classroom will most probably be furnished with multiple corporate CV’s, as Mr. Ortega, vice-president Mr. Bertaux (Mr. Rude) Fleming and Mr. Baker, outgoing Executive Director of the Chamber, are all proud former MPC students.
Ortega did not hesitate to reach out after seeing the latest Facebook video, edited by MPC teacher Femke Neunzig. “This is a great initiative. I would like to collaborate and send a request to the business community to participate in this project Keep a Cool Head”, Ortega said.
Ortega’s request might be the final sprint of the Keep a Cool Head project that kicked off in the Port of St. Maarten in September. The first AC’s, sponsored by Mr. Cool, were installed this week and the impact on the students is amazing to see, said Femke Neunzig. The classrooms will be adopted in order of sponsor appearance. The first three will be named “Port of St. Maarten classroom”, “Divico classroom” and “La Vista classroom”.
Interested parties to either supply air conditioning, solar panels or both are asked to follow the newspapers as the public tender to participate will be launched in the week of December 2nd . The project needs 38 inverter AC units (18,000 BTU and 23 Seer) and 204 solar panels in total. Full technical specifications and requirements can be made available upon request.
In the meantime, students and teachers are working hard on other crowdfunding initiatives, of which the flagship will surely be the “Stop School Fights – Keep a Cool Head School Party”, to be organized in the Festival Village on December 14. Entrance fee will be USD 15 and the larger SXM bands are expected to be performing, including former MPC students Michael Maidwell and Jacob Streefkerk of Orange Grove.
