Help one of our hard working truck drivers!

Hello Creston,

I am the Settlement Worker at CBAL here in town. I provide settlement services to newcomers and refugees to our community. I am writing to you all today, as I know of the great compassion and generosity that makes up this wonderful community, and I hope that you might be able to help.

With his permission, I want to share with you the difficult circumstances that one of my clients now finds himself in. He is a temporary foreign worker who arrived in Canada a year ago and has been working as a long haul truck driver on a closed work permit, which means he is not eligible to work for any other employer during his time here under the permit. He is the sole provider for his wife and two children back in Jamaica, a country with high rates of poverty, crime, and unemployment.

My client was in a trucking accident in early November, and through no fault of his own has had his Class 5 and Class 1 licenses suspended while he undergoes a series of medical tests. Becuase he was not injured, he is not eligible for WCB. These medical tests take months, and upon their completion he must wait another 12 months to be able to drive again. He has not had a source of income since the accident, and has not been helped by his employer to find alternative duties within the company. His current work permit now expires in April, and his only chance of being able to remain in Canada to work and provide for his family is to be offered another place of employment, and through that a new work permit.

He has not been sleeping or eating from stress, and fears most what will happen to his two young children should he not find another source of income. Jamaica does not have the social support systems we rely on in times of hardship here in Canada, and the consequences can be real and severe in situations like these.

He is currently living off of donated gift cards and trying to make them last, and walks long distances in this winter weather without access a vehicle. He has nothing left to send back to his wife for their children.

He is willing to do any work that is available in order to remain and provide for them, and has a background working in mechanics, agriculture, warehouses, trucking and heavy equipment. He desperately wants to work and pay his own way, to not be a burden on others or the system. If you own a business and would be willing to offer him work, I can support you in applying for the work permits required to allow him to remain. Should his work permit expire without a new one on the way, he will be trapped here with no funds to return home to his family. We may be too late to make the applications for a second work permit, but if thats the case, I would really love to be able to send him home to his family, and with some financial support to see them through while he looks for work there.

If you are not an employer but have the means to make a cash donation to help support him and his family it would mean so very very much. What is a small amount to many of us goes a long way back home for him.

I recognize that we see appeals for help all the time online, and it is easy to scroll right by so thank you for reading. This is a man in OUR community, who has lived and worked beside us, and who has driven thousands of miles over dangerous mountain passes delivering goods and essentials to our community. I like to think what makes this town so wonderful is how we look out for each other in our times of need ♥️

It is a difficult thing to ask for help a stranger, and as he sat across from me today with tears in his eyes I understood it wasn’t for him he was asking.

If you recognize his story and know his identity, please help to protect his privacy during this difficult time by not naming him in the comments, thank you

Your donations are so gratefully appreciated!