{"id":25128,"date":"2025-10-29T13:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T13:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25128\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T13:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T13:57:13","slug":"local-efforts-underway-to-aid-jamaica-post-hurricane-melissa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25128\/","title":{"rendered":"Local efforts underway to aid Jamaica post Hurricane Melissa"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Hurricane Melissa<\/a> made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, creating winds of up to 185 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

The storm is being considered one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record. While the western part of the island prepared for the worst of it, Central Florida residents with ties to Jamaica shared worry for the whole country.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a category 5 storm, mainly impacting the western part of the country, but officials say all of Jamaica has felt the brunt of the storm
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Local organizations, including restaurants and nonprofits are now calling on the Central Florida community to help gather resources for people impacted by the storm
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The Jamaican American Association of Central Florida, (JAAOCF) is collecting cash donations this year instead of food and other physical items
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Hurricane Melissa makes the 13th named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season<\/p>\n

Several local organizations, including restaurants and nonprofits like the Jamaican American Association of Central Florida (JAAOCF), are calling on the community to help raise funds and other physical resources like food to send over post-storm.<\/p>\n

JAAOCF President Joan Edghill shared that she could barely sleep in the days leading up to the hurricane making landfall. Despite most of her family leaving the island years ago, she said the safety for everyone is what\u2019s been concerning her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur motto is Out of many, One, and so you feel like we\u2019re all family,\u201d said Edghill. \u201cI\u2019m concerned about the country itself, for the people, all the people in the island and the loss of lives that could come from this and all the disaster and harm that this hurricane can bring,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Edghill moved from the country as a child and lived in the United Kingdom and in New York before moving to Central Florida.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s been years since she experienced a hurricane in her home country, she knows all too well the devastation that can come from them, including Hurricane Beryl, which hit Jamaica last year.<\/p>\n

Edghill said JAAOCF collected money, food hygiene products and other resources to help following that storm, but getting those items to people in need is why they\u2019re shifting their response this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to ship them to Jamaica; it was very costly to do that and also a lot of hard work. Then you had to make sure that the people at the other end distributed the supplies fairly and with integrity. We really had to be working before and after a lot with that,\u201d Edghill said.<\/p>\n

The organization will be sending cash to a \u201creputable\u201d company to help distribute the money as needed in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

Donations can be made on the JAAOCF website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, creating winds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3076,274,1548,1847,3316,115,1335,139,141,140,12166,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-25128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-good-news","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-good-news","11":"tag-hurricane-season","12":"tag-jaclyn-harold","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-storm-season","19":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}