My name is Altimont. I’m 27 years old. I was born in St. James, Montego Bay, Jamaica, and I’m currently living in California away from my family.

Currently in Jamaica, I have my older brother Adrian, my three older sisters Lydia, Saschell, and Alicia, and their 11 children between them. Recently, each of them has had their lives deeply affected by the natural disaster, Hurricane Melissa.

In the early stage of the hurricane, things seemed to start off quite calmly, but by day four, once I was finally able to regain contact with my sister, I was finally able to see and hear the totality of the true devastation that swept across the island. Homes were crushed in an instant, roofs thrown away in a matter of seconds, and people’s entire lives gone in the blink of an eye.

Through this hardship, the community is banding together, doing what they can to try to restore a sense of normalcy after this devastating shift, but there’s only so much that they can do alone and with limited financial resources. If you have the ability to help by donating, anything that you can give would go a long way towards restoring a sense of normalcy, providing critical resources from food to shelter.

Applications for the funds will be used to rebuild roofs purchase doors building material to repair homes that have partial damage replace windows and also food and medical supplies where needed

All donations will be sent to my sister Lydia via money gram. They will not only be used to help them reestablish their lives, but also go to providing some resources for the community as well. While some relief efforts are being provided to Jamaica at this time, some smaller communities like mine are going to be overlooked for quite a while before the government and the general relief aid that’s being provided is able to reach those areas.