When Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica this week, leaving communities without power and farmworkers unable to reach their families, the Farmworker Hub in Niagara-on-the-Lake moved fast to help.
“We’ve been going to the farms and talking to guys and just, you know, being there for them,” said Brittney Kranz, lead coordinator at the Farmworker Hub.
“I still have friends that have not heard from their families.”
Working with Niagara Workers Welcome, the hub is collecting small items that workers can take home with them: solar lanterns, headlamps, flashlights, power banks, hygiene products, safety gear, water boots and rain gear, tools, fruit and vegetable seeds, and gardening tools and equipment.
Lanterns remain the highest-priority item.
“The workers have a limit as to what they can travel with and bring home at this point,” Kranz said.
The first flight of farmworkers returning to Jamaica since the hurricane left this morning — “all of them went home with lanterns and headlamps,” she said.
Jamaica’s liaison service also asked the hub to serve as Niagara’s only drop-off site for relief supplies bound for the island.
Kranz said Althea Riley, the chief liaison officer, told her the service is “working with a shipping company to deliver aid directly to Jamaica.”
Residents can drop off donations at the hub or donate through its Amazon Wish List, which is focused on lightweight items.
The Jamaican liaison list is “pages long,” she said, and will be posted to the hub’s Facebook page this weekend.
The hub, normally a free store for seasonal workers, has been cleared to make room for donations.
“We’ve already had a local farmer come and bring power tools that were on the list of items needed,” Kranz said.
Some workers have lost their homes or roofs and others who were supposed to fly home are now delayed, she said.
Her time living in Indonesia during the 2004 tsunami that affected Thailand, she added, shaped how she values small-town efforts in times of crisis.
“We have to band together, as human beings, to help and make a difference,” she said.
“I think that Jamaica is, especially, in the hearts of everyone here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, in Niagara region, just because of what they do.,” she added.
Many farmworkers have been part of NOTL’s community for decades, making it a “second home” for many, Kranz said.
“We need to be people that they can rely on to help when something like this happens,” she said, “because it’s devastating.”
If roles were reversed, “we would need the support” too, she added.
“It’s just important for us to step up,” Kranz said. “Because we can.”
The community quickly rallied — some dropping off water purification tablets, others calling and asking how they could contribute or navigate the online wish list, she said.
“The Amazon driver had to make multiple trips to his van,” she added, guessing that “a quarter of his truck” was probably filled with donations.
“A farmworker, who was not leaving, coordinated with me to hand (supplies) out to all the guys — and he’s one who hasn’t heard from his family,” Kranz said. “Even he, you know, is doing everything that he can.”
Kranz said she’s been moved by the outpouring of generosity from people in town and expressed “a huge thank you to everyone.”
“Because nothing has been overlooked.”
