Jamaican workers use shipping container for giant care package

Yvonne Duncan of Jamaica said goodbye to her husband and two children back in March.

Since then she's been working seven days week nine hours a day picking strawberries and blueberries in the fields of Nova Scotia. Her days off are dictated by the weather. Only when it rains does she get a day of leisure.

"It is hard work," she says. "But hard work doesn't kill anyone."

She and 165 other Jamaicans mostly women spent the past eight months working in the fields and in the warehouse at Millen Farms, near Masstown, N.S.

Now they're getting ready to go home and it's not the standard packing job.

The group has pooled their money to rent a steel container they load up with supplies and ship back to their families.

"We buy the things we really need," Duncan says. "Not what we want, but what we need. Because some of the things in Jamaica is very expensive."

Large-screen TVs and soap

The container parked outside the Millen warehouse is jammed to the roof with plastic drums full of food, clothing and other supplies. The women are packing big-screen televisions and bicycles.

"Some will buy like TV, microwave, blenders," Duncan says. "Food stuff mostly, like rice, oil, body wash, soap. Those are more expensive in Jamaica."

Duncan says her two children, a 14-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter, are anxious to get "nice clothes and nice shoes." Mostly though, she just misses them and wishes they could visit to see what she does nine months of the year.

She has a work ethic that Curtis Millen, owner of Millen Farms, doesn't take for granted. The farm is one of a number in Nova Scotia that employs seasonal agricultural workers from other countries.

"We can't run horticultural operations in Nova Scotia without somebody to help us," Millen says. "We'd just close up without somebody that'll bend over and pick something. Pick out of an apple tree. Pick broccoli, pick cauliflower, pick strawberries."

'Years ago we felt indebted to try to help'

Millen started to help co-ordinate the container shipment about 10 years ago.

"Years ago we felt indebted to try to help," he says. "That's where it all started."

The Jamaican workers cover the $4,000 cost of shipping the container. Millen and his local crew load it and look after the logistical end.

"We're happy to help out with that," Millen says. "I mean, they've been here all summer to help us."

It's a small price to pay for a loyal group of workers he calls "probably the best crew we've ever had."

It's also a crew that will begin to return to Jamaica as the agricultural season winds down. By the end of November, Duncan will be home again with her family.

"Oh yes, they are really anxious to see me," she says.