“I die every night and I resurrect again in the morning,” said Facilities Manager at the Open Arms Centre in Kingston, Yvonne Grant, while attempting to explain her over 50 years of unwavering dedication to charity towards the less fortunate.

The Open Arms Centre has provided shelter, food and skills training to over 2,000 homeless people in Jamaica.

“I have been doing this for most of my life, especially through my church — Willesden Seventh-Day Adventist Church in England, and I’m also a nurse practitioner,” added the Kingstonian, who had emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1962.

“We had in our church a community services department so I was heavily involved in that department. I also did community mental health nursing, so I was out helping in the community a lot.

Others noted Grant’s natural ability to care for people along with her experience with the mentally ill, who she said are most vulnerable of the homeless group. Grant was soon tasked with what she said was her biggest charity responsibility.

“I was asked to administer 18 small groups to take care of the homeless,” she said, explaining that the charity spanned areas all across East London.

After completing school in the UK and earning her certification of Specialised Practitioner in Community Mental Health, Grant returned to Jamaica in 1997 to teach nursing at the West Indies College, now the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in Kingston.

However, she soon realised that this was not her calling. “Everywhere I went in Jamaica I saw needy people and homeless people and I just could not relax.”

The Samaritan also said: “I think the community was calling me, I was just always intrigued by the community and I want to see what’s happening inside the community because I think my heart lies in community outreach work.”

Grant responded to her life calling and left full- time teaching to work with the Community Mental Health Services in Kingston and St Andrew as a mental health officer.

“As a returning citizen, this helped me very much to get to know my people, to understand what they were going through in the communities,” Grant said, adding that she came to the realisation that people’s inability to meet their needs was a big problem.

The humanitarian, who described herself as young at heart, said that after working three years as a health officer she sought retirement.

“I tried to retire several times but it just didn’t work out”, she chuckled during her interview with the Jamaica Observer.

Grant said that her path to her current position as manager of a homeless centre started by interacting with persons who had mental illnesses, “as often- times these people happened to be homeless.”

“As mental health officers, we usually reached out to these people and try to help them by taking them to the Bellevue Hospital for further treatment, get them cleaned up and something to eat. So there was a need for persons who didn’t need to be in hospital but who had mental health problems,” she stated.

Grant said that through her involvement with the hospital she was invited to join the National Committee for the Homeless by its Senior Medical Officer, Dr Maureen Irons Morgan, who was also the chairperson for the committee.

She credited Dr Morgan as the main person who made the Open Arms Centre a reality.

As a part of a response to a five-year strategic plan to combat homelessness in Jamaica, the committee sought to establish a Drop-in centre for homeless people.

Grant was placed in the position of manager of the facility when it started in 2006 with only 22 drop-ins and until it grew to now accommodate up to 80 permanent residents.

“Bellevue was able to do some of the basic things that we needed to get off the ground, like the property, food and so so on until we gradually learned how to be independent,” she said.

When asked why she persists with looking out for hundreds of adults who she said often have emotional and physical barriers, she responded: “I go to bed, have a good sleep and feel refreshed in the morning and I am back at it again.”

Grant, a biological mother of three, said, “If you ask anyone they will tell you I have over 10 children.

“My husband and I were always taking in people and my children have been raised with the same do-good attitude.”

She also admitted that after many years of looking after people, it has become hard for her to stop.

“My greatest satisfaction is seeing persons in whatever situation they find themselves in come out of it despite whatever other challenges they face, like being mentally ill. Also, to see people who come through Open Arms achieve more than they ever thought they could achieve and go on to lead stable lives. I want to see them become productive and caring as well as helping others,” she insisted, maintaining that she often encourages the homeless that positive things can come out of the worst situations.