PAROTTEE, St Elizabeth — Her school has had so much help from charity group, Parottee Enrichment Project (PEP) that Principal Denash Clarke says she is running out of ways to say thanks.

“Each time they reach out to us we express our gratitude; we are running out of easy ways to do that,” a smiling Clarke, seated in her office at the Parottee Primary School, told the Jamaica Observer.

Using her fingers as a marker, she ticked off good deeds the overseas-based charity group — comprised mainly of Parottee natives, many of whom attended the primary school — had done since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago.

Parottee, located south-east of St Elizabeth’s capital Black River and readily recognised as a fishing beach with growing aspirations as a tourist attraction, also embraces inland communities on the fringes of the Black River Lower Morass.

Those include Hill Top where the primary school is located, as well as Springfield, Spice Grove, Little Bridge, and Graves End.

According to Clarke, when the pandemic brought physical, face-to-face classes to a halt at the primary school which accommodates 105 children, PEP donated electronic tablets to enable virtual learning from home. “Those tablets are still being used,” she said.

Other gifts include hands-on learning materials designed to help very young children read and do numbers while having fun; as well as more traditional school supplies such as school bags, writing books and pencils.

Parottee Basic School, next door to the primary school, gets similar assistance, Clarke said.

The charity group also upgraded the school’s computer room and library, replacing old computers. Thanks to PEP, Parottee Primary now has upgraded and expanded Internet service, she said.

Crucially, every year since 2020 all students entering high school from the Parottee Primary School — located at Hill Top, about two miles inland from the Parottee fishing beach — now have their tuition fees paid.

“So the parents don’t have to worry. For the first year they [members of the charity group] make sure that tuition is covered,” said Clarke.

Additionally, she said, “They [PEP] do follow-up with students to make sure that if there are any challenges, they provide assistance.”

Not far from the primary school, the Sunday Observer caught up with Granville Daley, also called Cal, a local businessman who is brother to the founding member of PEP, Florida-based businessman Albert Daley.

Cal operates as a link between residents of Parottee and the overseas-based PEP, volunteering to distribute food packages on a monthly basis to people in the community, perceived to be most in need.

Every end of the month Cal, with the help of another volunteer Roy Brooks, loads 120 packages of food including flour, rice, cornmeal, saltfish, and fresh vegetables into his pickup van for distribution to residents in close proximity to the Parottee beach and neighbouring communities.

At Christmas time the project becomes even more expansive, with gift packages inclusive of chicken meat purchased from local farmers, for many more people.

“The people really look forward to the help,” said Cal.

According to Brooks: “It is the right thing to help others.”

A beaming Christine Wright, shopkeeper and bartender at Hill Top who has watched as the charity project has grown and evolved, described it as “excellent”.

“I live in Hill Top and I can tell you this programme go a far way… sometimes the elderly don’t have the strong support they need and this goes a far way to help them…,” she revealed.

Very aware that Black River Hospital is the refuge for Parottee residents when health emergencies arise, members of PEP have also donated generously to that institution.

Last November, 33 hospital beds, two stretchers, one physician’s scale, and one medical examination table — all valued at over US$23,000 — were presented to the hospital by PEP executive member Ivet Davis, a retired nurse who has lived and worked in the USA for 33 years.

That presentation followed another, a year earlier, which included rubbing alcohol, surgical gowns, disposable sheets, under pads, hand sanitisers, masks and gloves.

“The PEP has donated to the Black River Hospital for the second time, knowing that it serves the community of Parottee,” the Jamaica Government’s information arm, Jamaica Information Service (JIS), reported Davis as saying last November.

Back then, Black River Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Diana Brown-Miller, in commending the charity group, said some of the newly donated beds would have been used to replace older ones.

And mayor of Black River Derrick Sangster said the gift to the hospital was of great value, “not only to the Black River area but to the [entire] parish [St Elizabeth], and even beyond”.

Incredibly, when members of the charity group — formally registered since 2020 — first came together, charity wasn’t the intention. Instead it was a case of people of Christian faith supporting each other in conference call and online prayer meetings, as part of the effort to deal with the troubles brought on by the pandemic.

In a telephone conversation Davis recalled the exact time and date, “8:28 on April 16, 2020”, when she received a telephone call from Albert Daley (both based in Florida) proposing prayer meetings to help people cope.

That online fellowship has continued every Thursday for members of the charity group, both Davis and Daley told the Sunday Observer.

“Our faith drew us together … [and] our parents grew us up the right way,” explained Daley who is president of the Florida-based rehab services provider, Healthcare Sevices Ltd.

He said the prayer group had started contemplating the material needs of people in Parottee when a member, Barry Bennett, reminded others that “our faith needs to be accompanied by works”, especially in the context of hardships brought on by the pandemic.

Members immediately bought into the concept on the basis that, the “Bible says it’s more blessed to give than to receive”, Daley said.

Education, health and the immediate needs of the elderly and impoverished in their native community became a central concern for the fast-growing charity group which now has members not only across the USA, but also in Canada, the Cayman Islands and Britain, Daley said.

Davis said the project has triggered investments in chicken rearing and vegetable production and the wider retail trade, since products for the gift packages are bought locally.

Daley and Davis told the Sunday Observer there are big plans ahead for more help for Parottee as it relates to a major outreach health-care programme set for July, including basic health checks for residents.

Other activities will include the handing out of educational scholarships and a “huge banquet”, with proceeds to go to community development.

A chuckling Clarke perhaps summed it up best. “COVID wasn’t all bad,” she said,”If it wasn’t for COVID we wouldn’t have had the Parottee Enrichment Project.”