NEWELL, St Elizabeth — Newell High School Principal Audrey Ellington was about two minutes into an interview with the Jamaica Observer inside the school library last Wednesday when two students walked in and asked her for care packages.

Ellington packed two bags with the items donated for the benefit of the school population and residents of neighbouring communities, following Hurricane Melissa’s October 28 rampage across Jamaica’s western region.

“We have butter beans, tuna, sardine, crackers, cereal, water, matches, toiletries, flour, and rice. We also have clothes and shoes, because a number of our students have been flooded out. We also got bedding and tarpaulin from Samaritan’s Purse,” she said.

“… We have asked for donations on behalf of our students and staff and for shut-in community members, and for some parents, so we get things. Today [last Wednesday] the World Food Programme came in and they gave us some boxes. We received clothing, shoes, food items, water from different donors — and anything that we get, we go out into the community and distribute,” the principal explained.

Newell High Principal Audrey Ellington showing some of the donated items stored inside the school’s library, last Wednesday.

“As soon as the items come in, we give it to the students and the parents and the community members who need it,” she added.

“The students will come in the afternoon to ask for a care package… We are more than just a school, we are facilitating the basics of life. At all times we pray for them [students]. We engage them in discussion, we ensure that they get food, we ensure that they get clothing, so we are trying our best to bring normality to life again,” said Ellington.

During the hurricane many children in the parish lost their belongings, including clothing and footwear.

Newell High, which served as a shelter up to a week ago, has now become a distribution point for relief in south-western St Elizabeth. The library has been transformed into a storage and packaging area for relief supplies.

With electricity still out in parts of St Elizabeth, students are allowed to attend classes out of uniform. But there is another reason for relaxing the uniform protocol.

“Although we gave students the liberty of wearing casual clothes, some still do not have clothes because everything went [with the hurricane],” Ellington said, adding, “We collect clothes and hygiene kits and issue them to our students.”

The community, she said, has been grateful for the relief supplies.

“Sometimes you go and you realise how thankful people are. One of my most touching moments was when we were distributing cooked food and I went down the road, saw this gentleman on a bike, I gave him the food and three bottles of water. He put the food in his bag and he turned a bottle of water to his head. He did not take it down until it was finished,” she told the Sunday Observer.

“It told me that this man really treasured a bottle of water — something that most of us take for granted at times. I also went to a home to deliver a tarpaulin and a little boy, all he asked for was just one bottle of water. So, ever since the hurricane I have been driving around with at least one case of water in my vehicle every day because there is going to be somebody who is going to want some water,” Ellington said.

The school has a population of approximately 700 students, but of that number fewer than half have returned for classes.

Newell High students dressed in casual clothing last Wednesday.

“We reopened on Monday, [December 1, 2025] for full school. Yesterday [last Tuesday] was our best day and we had 208 students returning… Our students are from some of the worst-hit areas in St Elizabeth… we have students coming from Barbary Hall, Mountainside, Burnt Savannah, Parottee, Slipe, Black River, Brompton, and Crawford areas. Some of our students are displaced [so] their parents sent them to other parishes to live or to stay with family,” Ellington explained.

She also said the school has been providing its students and staff with psychosocial support.

“About 12 of my staff members’ roofs went. There is one teacher from Lacovia that still cannot drive from her house because there is still water around the house, so she has to walk through the back area, through a wire, under a tree, in her water boots.

“When she reaches out on the road she takes off the water boot and then puts on her shoes to come to school,” the principal shared.

Asked what effect the Category 5 hurricane had on the school buildings, Ellington said they were, for the most part, unscathed.

“We did not get much damage because it’s a slab roof, so our damage was to the perimeter fencing; and our water drums came down because the pipes burst. The farm got beaten again — we had cash crops on it,” Ellington explained while adding that only the dorm for athletes lost its roof.