775 Communities, One Coordinator: Faith Groups Form a Hurricane Task Force After Melissa

• A National Religious and Faith-Based Hurricane Task Force was set up after Hurricane Melissa
• It will identify the needs of religious organisations and their members
• Bishop Dr Herro Blair will coordinate it alongside ODPEM
• Requests from faith groups will be routed through the culture ministry to ODPEM

Jamaica’s churches and other faith groups now have a single channel for hurricane relief. Culture Minister Olivia Grange announced a National Religious and Faith-Based Hurricane Task Force after meeting faith representatives at her ministry, the Gleaner reported in November 2025. Its job is to identify the needs of religious organisations and their members and to coordinate relief across more than 775 communities hit by Hurricane Melissa.

The task force is coordinated by Bishop Dr Herro Blair, president and founder of the Deliverance Evangelistic Association, working with the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM). It includes the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, Revival churches, the Mansions of Rastafari, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the United Congregation of Israelites. The umbrella group itself brings together seven bodies: the Jamaica Council of Churches, the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, the Jamaica Pentecostal Union (Apostolic), the Independent Churches of Jamaica, the Jamaica Evangelical Alliance, the Jamaica Union of Seventh-day Adventists and the Church of God in Jamaica.

“The task force has started to streamline and coordinate requests for support and assistance from individuals and groups, primarily in the five parishes severely affected by Hurricane Melissa — St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, St Ann and St James,” Grange said. Requests will be matched to the distribution systems of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and ODPEM, and faith groups’ requests will go through her ministry to ODPEM.

Grange also announced National Days of Prayer on November 15 and 16, each with an “Hour of Lament” for lives lost and the devastation. The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission was to coordinate fundraising, including the I Love Jamaica Telethon and Concert series with a gospel concert.

For churches, the new structure matters as much for buildings as for people. Congregations that lost roofs, halls and sanctuaries are both relief centres and claimants for help, and a single channel makes it more likely that their needs are counted. That depends on good records. Churches with clear documentation of their property, their losses and their repair estimates will be better placed to make their case, whether to the task force, to their denomination or to donors overseas.

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