IN A heart-warming act of corporate goodwill, GraceKennedy Foods USA yesterday donated hundreds of bottles of coconut water to front-line health workers at three hospitals in New York and New Jersey.

Health personnel who benefited are attached to East Orange General Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey; Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital in Mt Vernon, New York, and Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, New York.

“As one of the largest food exporters from Jamaica, we looked at what was happening with the health crisis in the region, and we wanted to find a useful and practical way to salute the hundreds of front-line healthcare workers and first responders who continue to demonstrate great courage, and who instil Herculean hope during a time of deep despair in the tri-state region,” Derrick Reckord, chief executive officer of GraceKennedy Foods USA, told The Gleaner.

“On behalf of the City of Mount Vernon, I would like to thank GraceKennedy for its generous donation of coconut water for the Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital, a facility that has been vital in managing the COVID-19 crisis,” Patterson-Howard told a gathering of city officials at the handover.

“Our front-line hospital workers stayed in the trenches and they have gone through more stress than can be imagined over the past two months,” Dr Winston Scott, a physician at East Orange General Hospital and president of Caribbean Medical Mission, told The Gleaner.