World Vision distributes toys to children in Jamaica impacted by Hurricane Melissa

World Vision is distributing toys to children in Jamaica whose lives have been affected by Hurricane Melissa, as the long road to recovery on the hard-hit island nation continues. 

The Evangelical charity organization is distributing toys to children in the five western parishes of Jamaica that were severely affected by Hurricane Melissa earlier this year.

In an interview with The Christian Post, which took place after a distribution in Chester Castle in Hanover Parish on Thursday, where the charitable organization Operation Blessing also helped out, World Vision’s Director of U.S. Programs, Reed Slattery, spoke about their relief efforts and discussed the situation on the ground six weeks after the hurricane made landfall in Jamaica. 

“So we had Squish Mallows for the little kids … so that every time they open it up out of the box, they just give it a big hug and squeeze,” he explained. “We had some Lego sets for the older kids. Then we had Puma shoes that the kids were also able to pick out, so they got a brand new pair of shoes, and then we topped it off with a backpack full of school supplies.” 

Slattery noted how children had “lost their books and school supplies” because many of “schools were damaged” by the hurricane. Slattery told CP that World Vision is on track to provide toys and supplies to 2,000 children between now and Dec. 26, when the last distribution will take place in Trelawny in conjunction with the Usain Bolt Foundation, a charitable organization established by Jamaican Olympic runner Usain Bolt. 

Toy distributions have already taken place in the parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover and St. James, while a distribution in St. Elizabeth is slated for next week. Slattery estimated that distributions in Westmoreland and Hanover each served 300-400 children. 

The toy distributions are in addition to the relief efforts that World Relief has been engaging in for the past six weeks, which remain ongoing. World Relief has worked to provide food boxes that contain enough food to feed a family of five for a week, specifically canned goods, including sardines and crackers. 

World Relief has been collaborating with another charitable organization, WaterStep, to provide clean water to hurricane victims. “For the families, we also have bottles of bleach,” he said.

Commenting on the recovery efforts six weeks after the storm made landfall, Slattery insisted that “the situation is still pretty dire.”

According to Slattery, “You drive through these communities and you see the power lines down. Folks don’t have power. It’ll be several more months before that comes back online. So the rebuilding efforts are really going to take a while.” 

“Outside of this Christmas distribution, our main focuses have been clean water through our [partnership] with [WaterStep] as well as food, canned food and then non-food items such as tarps, generators, solar lights, things like that to try to help families as they’re in this really challenging time,” Slattery stressed. “One other thing that we did early on was we set up churches as communication hubs.”

“We took out Starlink units and cords and power generators and gas cans so that we could get them up online to at least start communication between them and understanding their needs.” He added that while “communication’s getting a little bit better, the food and the water will still continue to be a need even after the holidays.”

So far, World Vision has shipped more than 12 40-foot shipping containers, several hundred pallets of relief materials from the U.S. and 1.5 shipping containers filled with toys. In light of the long recovery expected, World Vision anticipates continuing relief efforts for the foreseeable future. 

“Our team is going to be on the ground through the year,” he vowed. “We’re going to do some reassessing next year as we get into 2026, but we see a presence here for the next 90 days, continuing to meet some of these basic needs. And then we’ll continue to assess through our partnerships if there’s any other collaborations or areas that we can help, such as rebuilding things.”

Slattery concluded the interview by urging Americans to donate to World Vision’s relief efforts in Jamaica. Those hoping to contribute to help disaster victims can do so by visiting donate.worldvision.org. Slatttery characterized Hurricane Melissa as the most damaging storm he has seen in his 20 years working at World Vision, where he has taken part in relief efforts following about 15 storms. 

While Slattery noted that Hurricane Helene caused severe damage in western North Carolina last year and was “some of the worst devastation” he had ever seen, he characterized Hurricane Melissa as “similar to Helene” but more severe in terms of “the damage, the intensity” and “how vast and widespread it is” because the infrastructure in Jamaica was not as advanced as the infrastructure in the U.S.