Donald, Romaine, Maxwell, John Wayne and Delroy had their homes in Jamaica destroyed by Hurricane Melissa.

For 25 years these men have been part of the Starksboro Vermont community working on Lewis Creek Farm and feeding the Northern Vermont Community. Please help them to recover.

The Eye of Hurricane Melisa hit Trelawny and St Elizabeth Parishes in Jamaica with its full historic force on October 28, 2025. 185 mph winds slammed into their mountainside homes destroying their houses, their crops and their livestock. Entire communities were flattened. Houses, trees, cars, yam crops, chickens, goats, cows. Everything gone.

Thankfully no lives in their immediate families were lost.

UPDATE FRIDAY 10/31

Photos from Jamaica.

Family photos “Praise God, our lives were spared!”

Damaged buildings. Damaged crops. Even the native staples like Yams and Bananas and Dasheen, that practically grow wild…stripped bare.

THE NEWS GETS WORSE EVERY DAY.

As our workers talk to their families in Jamaica and they think about how they will start to rebuild when they get home, the severity of what they are faced with becomes more and more daunting. Some men have had everything they have worked for all their adult lives reduced to nothing.

It’s not just one farm that is damaged, not just one town, not just one Parish. It’s the entire island. Everyone has had their entire net worth reduced to Zero. No one has anything to sell and no one has any money to buy it with. Within 24 hours after the storm the report came in “The Looting has started”.

Please help the Jamaican Farmworkers at Lewis Creek Farm to rebuild their homes and their lives.

I am Hank Bissell, owner of Lewis Creek Farm and I am coordinating the fund raising. I will be passing on to these men the funds we raise, proportionally to their individual losses to help them rebuild their lives.