St. Augustine Clerk’s Passion Fuels Help for Jamaica’s Youth

St. Augustine Mail Processing Clerk Donavan Duncan has never forgotten his native country Jamaica where he lived until moving to New York when he was 12 years old. 

While growing up in New York, he became a huge baseball and New York Mets fan which was similar to the game of cricket that he learned as a child in Jamaica.

“I was so excited about the Mets victory over the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, but I wondered why all the speedy athletes in Jamaica hadn’t considered playing baseball,” said Donovan.

Although the game of baseball is played in almost every other island in the Caribbean and Central America, it is not popular in Jamaica; and only recently is the game catching on with younger children in Jamaica.

So Duncan decided to link his passion for baseball, his home country and to help find an activity for Jamaican youth to focus their energy and stay out of trouble in their spare time.

Baseball Jamaica was founded in the late 1980's by Duncan,  who wanted desperately to introduce the game of baseball primarily to the needy and underprivileged children in his native Jamaica.

While serving as an infantry man in the United States Marine Corps, Donavan made numerous trips to the island in his spare time distributing baseball and softball equipment and introducing the game to children in various communities, including the ghettos across the island of Jamaica.

Today Duncan makes about three trips a year back to Jamaica to continue to press local schools to start offering baseball to elementary grade students.

Last November he went to Jamaica with his friend Mail Processing Clerk Damon Van Brocklin to meet with government officials about construction of the first functional baseball field on the island.  Van Brocklin organized and supervised the project at no cost to the people of Jamaica and the field was completed in January 2012.

 “That really paid off as some of the local schools have begun to offer baseball to their students,” Duncan said.

Duncan says the biggest challenge is the funds to continue to support Baseball Jamaica and getting equipment into the country.  “We found that sending used equipment instead of new equipment has been an easier path getting to the children through the local customs brokers.”

He has had many donations from the local APWU, St Augustine co-workers Barbara Edwards, Ann Landess Robert Figueroa and Lue McIntyre, and particularly the Boles School which donated $2,000.

“Baseball Jamaica operates solely on equipment donations from churches, sporting goods stores and private citizens in the United States. We cannot repay them or thank them enough for their support. Without these donations, the dream dies,” said Duncan.

“This entire endeavor has taught me that what makes us great as humans and Americans is how we help others to help themselves regardless of our situation; and we cross borders, barriers and cultures with that aim and good will,” he said.

For more information about Baseball Jamaica, here is the organization’s website:

http://www.baseballjamaica.com/about.html