The Peru Gazette

A Craft Beer Tasting Event to benefit the Peru Community Church’s Jamaica Project will be held at the Plattsburgh Brewing Co. 411 Route 3 Plattsburgh, Wednesday, December 10, 2014 from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. It will be an evening of tasting local craft beer and snacks in an enjoyable and relaxing venue. The tickets are priced at $25 each with a maximum attendance of 120 people. A silent auction of donated items will be held in conjunction with the evening. For ticket information call Harriet at 518 643-9778 or Sally at 643-0309.

In 1999 The Peru Community Church first set up the Annual Jamaican Mission. It was in response to a local need to help a Jamaican worker who was in our town to pick apples for a local orchard. He fell from a ladder and was paralyzed from the mid chest down. After his convalescence, he returned to Jamaica to live out the rest of his life trapped in his wheelchair. It took 3 men to carry him out of his house just to get him to doctors appointments. The mission team from Peru from its inception included more than just Peru Church members. The team has always included people who for one reason or another learned of the project and wanted to help. The first few years, the team worked on the home of the paraplegic, making it handicap accessible. When he seemed comfortable in his home, the team began working with a local outreach organization which identified homeless people in need. The Mission each year since has gone to Jamaica to build simple comfortable houses for the poor of central Jamaica.

While in Jamaica the team also volunteers at area schools, orphanages, and medical clinics. Many items needed by these organizations are brought down in team members suitcases to be distributed to the needy.

Over the past 15 years, the Jamaican Mission has changed the lives of scores of Jamaican people. Nearly 80 people from as far away as Colorado and Florida have joined the Mission and all will say that even though they went to Jamaica to change the lives of the less fortunate, they returned feeling that they were the ones who had benefited. Being immersed in the culture of the average person in a foreign land and doing for others are life changing events.

Each year the total budget of the project is approximately $35,000. All of the expenses incurred personally by team members, travel, hotel, food, daily transportation, etc are paid for by the individual team members traveling. This covers close to $25,000. The balance of nearly $10,000 is raised by the Jamaican Mission committee. This money is needed mainly to purchase building materials in Jamaica for the house building and house repair projects.