Tracey Wright, DC, a chiropractor in Montego Bay, says she “wanted to uplift souls like Jamaica has the capacity to do.” So when she decided to offer chiropractic colleagues a chance to give service in Jamaica, she developed a self-care and service retreat where her chiropractor colleagues could get great food, do yoga, and every day go out to serve various communities.
Wright, who already knew Hanover Charities’ chair Katrin Casserly, said it was a natural combination to ask Katrin for advice on facilities that would benefit from chiropractic care. She noted that Katrin has such a trusted rapport with the institutions Hanover Charities helps support, making it was easy to partner with the charity.
In March, Wright and three colleagues on retreat visited Westhaven, a custodial home for physical and mentally disabled children. Wright says that “Westhaven was really really special.” Some of the children are wheel-chair bound, and some just haven’t been touched much, Wright points out. “Chiropractic is about the light running through your nervous system, and we could see, with gentle touching, residents’ breathing change and they started to smile.”
The visits also extended to the Lucea Infirmary, a facility primarily for the elderly. The chiropractors set up tables under the trees there, and the residents were “just so happy, and they had a brighter energy when we left than when we came,” Wright says. One blind woman wanted to give something special to the chiropractors, so she sat and sang Harry Bellafonte songs while they did their adjustments.
