**Updated November 5, 2025**

Hello. My name is Dustin and this post is to everyone - not just my friends and family. For those that don’t know, I’m a firefighter/ paramedic (took early retirement from Akron fire to run my motorcycle business - Sands Cycleworks). My wife Cortney is an Emergency Room Doctor and our 4 year old Josie is a helper with the biggest heart you could imagine.

My family and I were vacationing in Jamaica visiting friends/family when hurricane Melissa hit. We met these folks back in 2015 on a cruise. My wife and I were invited to their wedding and we gladly accepted their invitation. It was one of the most memorable events of our lives. The hospitality and graciousness of their entire family left us with a decade long friendship and we consider them a part of our family.

While visiting them this time, we found ourselves on a Montego Bay resort directly in the path of hurricane Melissa. During the eye of the hurricane, I went out with a worker of the resort to button up the roof because the door had blown off and the wind was causing severe damage to the upper rooms of the resort. It was causing a vortex of sort inside the top two floors and the safety of families taking shelter in those rooms was our main concern. We succeeded and thankfully none of these families were hurt, due to of our efforts.

It was a horrific experience but my family and our friends in Jamaica came out ok with no injuries. Unfortunately, most lost everything - including their homes. The day after the storm passed we went out and made contact with our local friends to see how we could help. We could not sit in the resort knowing our close friends and their families were suffering. My wife, my daughter and I started collecting donations from friends at the resort. We gathered food, clothes, water, toothbrushes, toys and anything that anyone was willing to give. We sorted the donations and then left from our severely damaged resort to give these items to the people who needed them.

In the days that followed, we helped cut up a tree, clear property, sort roofing materials and lumber out of piles of debris. We pulled nails out of old lumber and piled them so they could be reused. We helped make repairs to homes the best we could, with what we had. Unfortunately, we were limited to what we could do as I had to take care of my family as well.

Our plan is to get back to Jamaica as soon as possible. I will be going back with 2-3 of my best friends to rebuild homes, install roofs, repair windows & doors and provide food and supplies as needed. These people need our help and they need it quickly. We will be posting actual pictures of work and updating our progress on the ground while we are in Jamaica. 100% of money we collect will go directly to these efforts and to the people of Jamaica.

Please donate if you can and share this post with friends and family.

One love.

PS - Bill King is my good friend and I asked him to create the GoFundMe while I was in Jamaica because I did not have access to the internet. Please trust that this is a legitimate fundraiser started by me.