GoodHeart | Chinese community helps rebuild Melissa-hit basic school

D.R.B. Grant Demonstration Basic School still bears the marks of Hurricane Melissa. Furniture was swept away, classrooms were left leaking, and the main office was reduced to shambles. Yet inside the battered walls, hope is beginning to take root.
Founded in 1988, the school has served families in Catherine Hall and the surrounding communities for more than three decades. It now teaches about 161 children. After the Category 5 landfall, some families relocated, and the school lost pupils it had known for years. “We really serve Catherine Hall,” said Principal Heather Wiggan, describing a school woven into the life of its community.
The damage went beyond the physical. Many of the school’s own teachers live in Catherine Hall and lost their belongings too. “When they came out, and they saw what took place with the school, they broke down,” Wiggan recalled. The school arranged psychosocial support for its staff even as it began repairs to the building.
But what carried the school through was its parents. Though D.R.B. Grant is a fee-paying school, parents who had lost jobs and homes gave what they could, in time and labour. They cleaned, helped with repairs and, when every desk and chair had been destroyed, bought and shared furniture so their children would have somewhere to sit. A US volunteer group, Rubicon, joined the effort, clearing debris and working on the roof.
Through its newest partner, the Chinese Community of Jamaica (CCJ), an association of Chinese-Jamaican enterprises that invests in the long-term development of the communities where its members operate, the school has received a $500,000 donation to support its rebuilding efforts.
For Wiggan, the contribution could not have come at a better time. “This donation is going to play a vital role in really helping us to rebuild,” she said. “It will enable us to do repairs to the classrooms, to restore essential facilities and the learning materials that were destroyed, and to make the environment more conducive for both students and staff.”
Min Lin of CCJ said the group acted once the scale of the school’s loss became clear. “When we learned what the storm had taken from them, we knew we wanted to help,” she said. “We hope this gift gives the teachers and pupils the footing they need to carry on.”
The money will be stretched “far and wide”, Wiggan said. The greatest needs are furniture and the main office, which must be sealed and secured to shelter children during a fire or earthquake. Leaks in a few classrooms will finally be fixed.
How CCJ found the school is perhaps the most moving part of the story. The connection came through a former parent, whose child had already moved on but who remembered what the school had given her family. “I think she recommended us because she was satisfied with the end product of her child,” Wiggan said. It was not the Chinese community’s first act of kindness. An earlier group had helped clear debris from the schoolyard when the need was greatest.
The principal hopes the gift marks the start of something lasting. “If I am honest with you, I hope this will be long-term,” she said. What she treasures goes beyond the cheque. “It is not only about us getting something tangible. Their presence would really make much of a difference,” she said.
The school that refused to give up is being lifted by the kindness of parents, volunteers and now the CCJ. As rebuilding continues, each repair brings D.R.B. Grant one step closer to restoring the learning environment its children deserve.
goodheart@gleanerjm.com