GREEN ISLAND, Hanover — Tomorrow, Friday, August 13, will be a lucky day for many Green Island Primary School students as their outgoing schoolmate, Roan Salmon, will make donations of food items valued at thousands of dollars to the less fortunate students at the Hanover-based institution as part of his 12th birthday celebrations.

Among the packaged items to be distributed are tuna fish, sausages, noodles, Kool-Aid, macaroni and cheese, tea mix, granola bar treats, rice crispy treats, Capri Sun juice, coconut oil, rice, flour, and cornmeal.

“It is a very happy feeling. I am elated to do it because at school I saw where some of the students are in need,” Roan told the Jamaica Observer West.

“I think the parents will be very grateful because, in this time of the [novel coronavirus] pandemic, many of them can hardly find food to eat.”

Roan’s mother Deneisa Gordon Salmon said she was “overcome with tears of joy” when he told her that he would be undertaking the massive food distribution project for the less fortunate at his outgoing primary school.

“That little boy [Roan] let me bawl the morning [two months ago]. Just like that, he just came up and said that this is what he is gonna do,” expressed the proud mother.

Gordon Salmon, a businesswoman who operates a supermarket and a haberdashery in Green Island, lives in Grange Hill, Westmoreland with two boys and one girl, ages 21, 11 and six, respectively, said that from a tender age she had instilled in them to “study hard, develop a habit of saving, and to share whatever little they have.”

According to Gordon Salmon, apart from the morals instilled in her children, Roan is a natural kind-hearted and God-fearing individual who is always giving to those in need.

“Even if I am driving to work and he sees a homeless [person], he would have asked me, ‘Mommy, can I get a hundred dollars’? Sometimes I would say no. Why do you need a hundred dollars? You don’t need no money to spend, but when I look around, I realise his purpose for asking for a hundred dollars, I just hand it to him and he would say ‘stop the car’ and I would stop the car and he would just go out and hand it to the homeless,” stated Gordon Salmon.

She said her children grew up seeing her throwing partner, adding that Roan is also a very thrifty person.

“Every day he would save from his lunch money and he would throw a partner. And, let me tell you, this little boy does not want to throw any ‘children’s partner’. He has to be in an ‘adult partner’ because he says the ‘children’s partner’ is little money. He wants to collect big. He is that type of child,” said Gordon Salmon, who also assists him with the money for the partner.

Gordon Salmon told the Observer West that two months ago, while she and Roan were at her businessplace in Green Island, Roan, “out of nowhere”, said, “there are children who would love to have macaroni and cheese and they cannot afford it,’ so he would like to do something about it.”

She said he then suggested that funds that were saved could be sent to his cousin overseas to purchase items for the less fortunate students.

The money was later sent overseas to purchase some items while the remaining ones were obtained in Jamaica.

And Roan is encouraging others to be generous and not to be afraid to pursue their dreams.

“Both students and adults, I would encourage them to give what they can [to others] because there are some people out there who have less than them,” he stressed.

Green Island Principal Vaccianna Moseley is in full support of the initiative.

“I endorse the programme and I will do everything in my powers to make sure that those who need it will get it to ensure that his (Roan’s) will be carried out,” stated Moseley, adding, “I can’t wait to be there to witness the whole process.”

“I am overwhelmed. I am so impressed with this young man especially during this time when this generation is so selfish and to find that you still have an individual thinking about others. His level of selfishness is unbelievable. I spoke to the mother and there are so many things that this young man would want to make his life a little bit better in terms of games, gadgets and so on, but with the little resource that he has saved over these months, he chose to make others happy, I am so impressed with his level of selfishness.”

Moseley described Roan as a student leader who always comes up with ideas to form clubs that can assist other boys at the school.

Roan who did extremely well in his Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams will be moving to his first choice, Manning’s School in Westmoreland, in September.