It was a partnership between BOOM Energy Drink and Food For The Poor’s ‘Tan Ah Yuh Yard’ COVID-19 project that inspired a spirit of volunteerism and brotherly love in mid-May.

Popular disc jockey and music producer Kurt ‘The Party Animal’ Riley, along with community members of Biddenford, a small district in Trelawny, came together to help build a safe and sanitary structure with modern amenities for Hubert Clarke and his small family to call home.

Riley, dismayed by the state of the dilapidated one-room zinc shack in which the Clarkes had been living for the last 20 years, was heartened to join Food For The Poor and BOOM in the venture which has promoted the Clarkes from using outdoor kitchen and pit latrine facilities.

“People no fi a live so still. You have many mister and missus Clarkes out there. Just like how BOOM can come on board and help the Clarkes them… . Any individual, any other company who want come on board and support BOOM with what them a do alongside Food For The Poor … just come make we help the mister Clarkes them and missus Clarkes them a Jamaica,” he said.

Hubert Clarke, a small farmer, and his wife Kathleen, a domestic worker, are grateful for the support rendered to them by the various stakeholders. A humble Mr Clarke shared that “I live here from 89 and the zinc them and post them getting old… but to be honest, me proud of it because is me who make it. Though I am coming out of it, I am still proud of it – though sometimes it be a curse to me. So, me happy. Me grateful. Many thanks for all the people who make this [new] house a success. It is beautiful.”

For the Clarkes, the two-bedroom dwelling with loft, bathroom, kitchenette, water tank and a starter solar panel, now offers them an opportunity to provide a space for their son Rolando, a 35-year-old mentally challenged man who suffers from schizophrenia. He had been sleeping by his grandmother’s house some distance away because of space constraints in the one-room shack, but now has a designated place to rest his head.

The dwelling provided for the Clarkes is one of 30 under Food For The Poor’s ‘Tan Ah Yuh Yard’ campaign which commenced in 2020. BOOM Energy Drink committed to assist with costs associated with 10 of the units in commemoration of the brand’s 10-year anniversary.

Marsha Burrell-rose, development and marketing manager at Food For The Poor Jamaica, asserted: “It was such an amazing feeling to be able to bless Mr Clarke and his family with a new house. God bless BOOM and God bless all the donors. We are here to make a difference and we cannot do it without our donors.”

BOOM will sponsor another three houses under the FFTP COVID-19 initiative, which seeks to provide safe and sanitary structures for more Jamaicans to stay indoors as one of the measures in minimizing the spread of COVID-19.