Jamaica Charity Rebuilds Two Hurricane-Wrecked Homes

When Hurricane Melissa flattened their home in Bunkers Hill, Jamaica, Clinton Reid and his 84-year-old brother Neville had nowhere to go. Clinton, 70 and blind, had depended on Neville for years, but the storm took away more than their roof. It stripped them of their independence.

For months, the brothers lived alone in a community emergency shelter while others found places to stay. No beds, no furniture, just waiting. Meanwhile, Tanekia Titus and her five children squeezed into a single room patched with tarpaulin after losing their entire two-bedroom home.

Local relief never came. Bank transfers got rejected without explanation. Weeks turned into months as families who'd lost everything continued sleeping in makeshift shelters, becoming the forgotten faces of a disaster that had already left the headlines.

That's when the Hermine Pryce Foundation made a choice. Rather than wait for systems to work, the US-based charity bought building materials directly from a local hardware store and got to work. The foundation, run by all 14 children of the late Hermine Pryce, carries on their mother's legacy of quiet generosity in Jamaica.

Last week, they delivered $11,000 worth of supplies to start rebuilding two homes. The Reid brothers will get a modest structure designed for their needs. Titus and her children will have a two-room unit with an actual bathroom, replacing the exposed space where rain still found its way inside.

"I lost everything," Titus told The Gleaner, her voice soft. Her youngest child is 10, and with their father deceased, her week-on, week-off income barely covers the basics. Privacy disappeared after the hurricane. Safety became the only goal.

Sunny's Take

What makes this story shine isn't just the $11,000 or the new walls going up in Bunkers Hill. It's that the Hermine Pryce Foundation represents 14 siblings who watched their mother help others without fanfare for decades and decided that's exactly who they wanted to be too. When bureaucracy failed these families, the foundation didn't make promises or take photos for social media. They just showed up, bought the materials, and started building.

Community representative Courtney McIntosh has seen it before: people arrive, cameras flash, pledges get made, then nothing happens. "Some people are still right where the storm left them," he said. But this time was different.

Construction starts immediately, bringing dignity back to families who've been surviving rather than living since Hurricane Melissa struck.