Credit card donations to the Government’s official disaster relief and recovery portal, supportjamaica.gov.jm, reached US$1.08 million and J$53.2 million, as of 8:07 am on Tuesday, November 11.

This was disclosed by Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, during a special press briefing at Jamaica House on Tuesday.

“At our next briefing on Thursday, I’ll be able to give you the total that has come in via direct deposit to the accounts,” she advised.

Meanwhile, the minister indicated that 40 bilateral partners have pledged their support to Jamaica in the aftermath of Category Five Hurricane Melissa.

“We are so grateful to every single country, every bilateral partner. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade has been doing a tremendous job coordinating all of that. Thirty-one of them have already sent through their contributions. The others were working to expedite those contributions,” Dr Morris Dixon said.

To date, 170 donors and 3,921 volunteers have registered on the platform.

“The ministries will be using them, especially as we get to the ‘Clean Up Jamaica’ exercises. We’ll be using a lot of volunteers there, and we will also use them in our own work in the Ministry of Education. I should note, it is Youth Month, and one of the things we want to do for Youth Month is to empower young people to give back and to serve our country during this month,” Senator Morris Dixon said of the volunteers.