About the Nonprofit
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Founded in 2004, Jamaica Youth Education Support (Jamaica YES) is a Dallas based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All members are 100% volunteer and 100% of all donations are used to support the underserved school children in the rural areas of Jamaica.
Jamaica YES is dedicated to ensuring no child in Jamaica attends school on an empty stomach. Many families in the rural areas of Jamaica fall below the poverty line and all too often there is little to no food in the home nor money for transportation to get the children to and from school (there are no yellow school buses in Jamaica).
We fund breakfast and lunch programs (currently 3,100 meals per week) in eleven schools impacting over 660 students from preschool to the sixth grade. We also pay for student transportation to and from school (over 5,000 round trips per school year). During the Covid-19 virtual learning environmnet when children were prohibited from attending school, Jamaica YES has funded over 650 emergency food assistance packages, which were provided to food insecure students and their families. Every dollar we raise provides five meals for the underserved school children in Jamaica.
Along with our continued funding of food and transportation programs for the 2021/2022 school year, Jamaica YES is also offering five privately funded scholarships for students transitioning from primary to high school.
Although Covid-19 prevented us from accomplishing most our planned activities for 2020, in 2019, along with our meal and transportation programs, we collected 150 pairs of used glasses, which we donated to the ISSA Trust Foundation in Jamaica. They teamed up with the Michagan Rotary Club to provide the glasses to Jamaican school children at no cost. Members of Jamaica YES joined with employees of the Dalls American Airlines Caribbean Employee Business Resource Group to construct three vegetable gardens at one school to raise their own food and assembled playground equipment at another school.
Domestically, we have assisted in preparing over 16,000 meals for the underserved students in West Dallas through Hunger Busters, helped make another 8,500 meals for the homeless in the area around the city of Allen through Feed the City (aka Tango Tab) and volunteered at the North Dallas Food Bank. We have collected almost two tons of food and water for Minnie's Food Pantry, a Plano, TX based nonprofit who provides food packages for those in need around the North Texas area. Jamaica YES was awarded two street signs by the city of Allen on a stretch of highway for the Adopt-A-Highway program in recognition of our ongoing litter collection.
Our efforts to improve the lives of Jamaican school children have been recognized in several ways, including nomination for the Prime Minister's Jamaica Commemorative Medal of Appreciation for service to Jamaica, nominiation for the Immigrant Journey Award and several articles in the Jamaican national newspapers, Jamaica Observer and Jamaica Gleaner.
