WESTERN BUREAU — The Montego Bay woman who, despite struggling with her own money woes, assumed the foster care of two orphaned girls is now receiving financial help to improve the children’s quality of life.

Yvonne Clarke, who lives at Rose Heights with the girls and her four biological children, recently received a $50,000 donation from the resort city’s branch of RBTT Jamaica Limited.

The money is to go towards financing the expansion of her tiny one-room house, which has become cramped with her large family of growing children.

“The $50,000 is to help her build an additional room at her home. We raised the funds through our efforts here (at the bank). We solicited funds from some of our customers. Some of it came from our staff members. Others donated material as well,” Valrie Wilks, proof teller and head of the RBTT’s outreach committee in Montego Bay, told the Observer.

A grateful Clarke expressed thanks to the bank, saying the donation was a good start for her and her family.

“It is a good start. I need the help,” she frankly told the Observer.

Wilks said that after she read of Clarke’s need in the Observer the bank had opted to assist the 31 year-old mother as part of its continued drive to give back to the community.

“We want to get involved in the community… So we thought it would really be a good idea to help and it was a real needy cause,” she explained.

“(We were impressed by) the fact that Miss Clarke has her own kids (who) are in school, and while she didn’t have it financially she thought she had to help these (other two) kids out,” the proof teller said.

Wilks added: “We thought that was very touching. She really doesn’t have all that she needs for her kids and herself and she just could not turn her back on those kids. So we thought this was really one needy one that we really should assist.”

Clarke took over the care of the orphaned girls, aged eight and 10, following their father’s death in August of 2001. The girls’ mother, Lillian Fennel, had died earlier.

At the time of their father’s death no one else stepped forward with a long-term plan to help the girls and so Clarke opted to help them. But without a job and children of her own to provide for, she found it difficult to care for them without assistance.

At one stage, she feared that Children’s Services would take the girls from her.

However, with this recent donation from the RBTT, she feels a renewed sense of hope for the girls she said she has come to love as her own. And it is not just the RBTT that has chipped in to help.

The church in her neighbourhood, the Lighthouse of Faith, is also playing a role, Clarke said.

And within another few days, she expects to begin construction of another room.

“The church and the bank are the two who have helped… We get the sand and the cement already. And somebody offered us some block and we went and picked that up also. So if we get the stone we’ll start set up the columns for the foundation soon,” she said.

“I am thankful for the help. I really need it,” she added.

As for the girls, she said they continued to do well.

“They are doing okay. Teresa, the 10 year-old, she came third in her class and Sandra, the eight year-old came first,” she said, adding that the girls, like her, were excited at the prospect of a new addition to their home.