Jamaica’s freshly minted World champion Oblique Seville has donated $500,000 to the United Way Jamaica’s Restoration and Rehabilitation Fund, which was launched on Tuesday at the offices of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).

Seville’s donation was also matched by United Way with $1.5m plus an additional $21m from its parent company, United Way International.

The United Way Restoration Fund is in support of persons and communities, especially farmers, badly affected by Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday, October 28.

Seville, who has just recovered from a toe surgery, was named United Way ambassador and, having farming parents, had little difficulty starting the process to offer support to Hurricane Melissa victims.

“For me, with my parents and everything, it’s what actually built me, and I see it all. I see how hard it is to do agriculture, and sometimes farmers do give back, so for me to give back is something special,” said Seville.

“I saw how hard it is for my parents to go through and the stuff that they are doing, bringing back agriculture, it’s hard,” he lamented.

“So, for me to give back is something special in my heart for them, and when it comes to food, we cannot live without that. It’s very important that we get that back up and running as soon as possible because that keeps the engine going,” he added.

Dr Devon Smith, chairman of United Way Jamaica, said they recognised the disastrous impact of Hurricane Melissa and have mobilised their resources to commence the recovery process.

“So, we convened an emergency board meeting where it was unanimously agreed to seed the programme with $1.5m and work with our local partners to restore the livelihood of our farming communities,” said Dr Smith.

“But even more importantly, to restore our food security and to restore the lives of our farmers here. This mobilisation is targeted toward the private and public sector entities, to partner with us, the United Way, to support this initiative, which we have now done, the farmers’ rehabilitation,” he added.