Food For The Poor Jamaica assisting relief efforts in Westmoreland

Hurricane Melissa tore through Westmoreland, with sustained wind speeds of 185 mph when it made landfall as a Category 5 storm last week, leaving splintered homes, flooded farms, and communities gasping for help.

Debbie-Anne Gordon, Board member of Food For The Poor Jamaica, didn’t wait for her phone to ring.

“ I have family in Westmoreland, and I didn’t know what was happening. I just decided to take the road,” she said. On the treacherous drive to Westmoreland, all that was on her mind was, “I didn’t know if my mother was alive.”

Debbie-Anne Gordon, Board member of Food For The Poor Jamaica

When she arrived in Westmoreland, she told Caribbean National Weekly, “I saw a lot of frightened faces. I saw a lot of insecure faces, a lot of desperate people, a lot of hungry people, a lot of thirsty people, a lot of distressed men, women, and children who are concerned about where they’re going to be sleeping and what tomorrow will bring.”

After seeing her mom and others in Westmoreland, she drove back to Kingston to brief the founders and board of Food for the Poor.

“I spoke with our chairman, Andrew Maffood, and with William Maffood — the founders of Food for the Poor, and with board member Jean Lowrie-Chin. I explained what I saw. Honestly, it sounded like fantasy to them… the destruction was beyond imagination.”

They didn’t hesitate.

“Whatever it was, they said, fine. We will get on to it.’ And that’s how the relief mission began.”

Gordon has dedicated years to supporting the indigent and vulnerable. Gordon paused as she reflected on those first hours in her home parish.

“It’s indescribable… What you see is trauma,” she reiterated.

The storm had ripped apart communication lines, leaving entire districts isolated.

“People are still being sheltered in schools. Many are walking miles each day just to get water or to bathe,” she explained.

And over and over, she said, the suffering was written into every expression.

“I see in their faces the same repeated question: When will help come? When will anything change? Because everything around them is destroyed.”

Despite the devastation, Gordon insisted that despair cannot be the final word.

“It is overwhelming. You look around and wonder if we can really recover from this at all,” she admitted. “But for those of us who can help or who feel strong enough to extend hope or love or something tangible, we must know that there is hope.”

Her voice strengthened.

“And that help must come from us. From fellow Westmoreland people, from the diaspora, from anyone who can influence on a larger scale. That change must come from among us.”

Gordon reminded her of what her organization was built to do.

“To improve the lives of the indigent, to serve the less fortunate, and to meet their every need – food, clothing, housing, whatever it may be,” she said.

Food For The Poor Jamaica builds hundreds of houses each year, thanks to donors locally and overseas.

“We’ve developed a model that allows us to build efficiently, at scale, and at a cost that helps us build as many homes as possible,” Gordon explained. “And right now, that matters more than ever.”