When Hurricane Melissa ravaged Deborah Lanigan’s home country of Jamaica two weeks ago, it would have been easy to become discouraged. The vice president of sales and business development at Proforma Mega Marketing Solutions (asi/491957), who lives in Kingston, Jamaica, about 70% of the time (as well as in Florida) has seen a whirlwind of order cancellations, including one already in production. But despite the circumstances, Lanigan is leading with gratitude.

“People have really stepped up,” she says. “They’ve made donations and contributed toward our efforts to help the community. In times like this, you really see the good in people. You can’t get distracted by the bad ones.”

Now, Lanigan is laser-focused on providing aid to the people most in need. The work is far from done, but she’s been encouraged by all the aid that’s coming into the country in the wake of a natural disaster that left so many people without food, water and electricity.

A Tale of Two Regions

Hurricane Melissa rampaged through Jamaica on Oct. 28. The Category 5 storm continued on through the Caribbean, hitting additional islands (including Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and killing 67 people, including 32 in Jamaica. It has caused up to $4 billion in insured losses on the island and tens of billions of dollars of damage overall, as reported by NBC News.

Lanigan considers herself one of the lucky ones. Kingston was mostly untouched by the hurricane, she says. However, other parts of the country paint a vastly different picture.

“In the north coast of Jamaica, where you see a lot of the tourist areas, it looks like a hurricane passed through. But in the South, it looks like someone dropped a bomb,” she says.

A photo of one of the communities most affected by Hurricane Melissa (Courtesy of Deborah Lanigan)

Many Jamaicans are struggling just to survive.

“I’m really concerned about the disease that could come out of this. People are brushing their teeth with dirty water,” Lanigan explains. “We have water tanks, but those will only last so long before they run out.”

Lanigan and her team have spent the last week delivering care packages to residents in need, and she couldn’t have done it without the help of her industry peers. Counselor Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863) is donating items at no charge, and Counselor Top 40 suppliers PCNA (asi/66887) and Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125) have donated goods at a discounted price. Proforma franchise owners, many of whom Lanigan doesn’t know personally, have also sent donations. Employees at Proforma have spent the last several days packing and delivering these items to the communities that need them most.

Proforma employees in Kingston, Jamaica, have spent the last several days packing and delivering goods to communities impacted by the Category 5 hurricane. Courtesy of Deborah Lanigan

It’s a reminder, Lanigan says, that members of the promo industry look out for one another.

Accelerated Spending Challenges

The Jamaican promo market was already witnessing a slowdown prior to Hurricane Melissa.

“Jamaica is a tariffed country, so we have seen a lot of budgets being cut,” she says. “It’s becoming more expensive to get things here.”

Lanigan says the hurricane is just another reminder that the world is unpredictable – and diversification can help promo companies weather the storm. One-third of her customers are based in Jamaica, so while she is feeling some business impacts, she’s not suffering as much as she would be if she sold primarily to Jamaican customers.

“If we’re feeling these challenges, I can only imagine how many others are feeling it,” she says. “Anyone who has clients in Jamaica alone is going to suffer with holiday sales and going into 2026.”

Stacy Chai-Chong, general manager at Kingston-based distributor Touchline Industries Ltd. (asi/345638), echoes a similar refrain. “Business is going to be at a standstill this year for promotional products,” she says. “The hurricane will be everyone’s main focus, even ours.”

“People have really stepped up. They’ve made donations and contributed toward our efforts to help the community. In times like this, you really see the good in people.”Deborah Lanigan, Proforma (asi/300094)

Lanigan adds that it’s going to be about a year, maybe longer, before Jamaica looks and feels the way it did before Melissa struck.

But through it all, Lanigan has been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity she’s witnessed in the wake of the hurricane. She says if the experience taught her anything, it’s the power of asking for help.

“If we hadn’t reached out to people in the industry, we probably wouldn’t have gotten all the help we did,” she says. “A lot of times, we are afraid to ask for what we want and need. But when you ask, people respond."