On Friday, August 9, the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons (CCRP) hosted a fundraiser to aid elderly victims of Hurricane Beryl with a benefit performance of the National Dance Theatre Company's (NDTC) 62nd season. The full house audience raised 
J$790,670.

In addition to last Friday's benefit proceeds, the CCRP spent almost half a million Jamaican dollars on care packages comprising non-perishable food items and crucial toiletries prepared by Food for the Poor. The Sandals Foundation donated a hundred sets of bed linen and towels to the CCRP. A team from the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC) distributed the care packages, bedding, and towels on behalf of the CCRP. NCSC's CEO Cassandra Morrison said the items "were sorely needed." Their distribution brought comfort and eased some of the distress brought on by the July 3 Category 4 hurricane.

In response to the organisation's members' turnout on Friday last, CCRP Board Director Patricia Reid-Waugh was thrilled to partner with "a Jamaican cultural institution such as the NDTC in order to help meet the pressing needs of seniors across the island following the passage of the hurricane."  NDTC Artistic Director Marlon Simms said the Company viewed the charity night as an opportunity to play its role in supporting development and honouring the "selflessness of its founders."

"CCRP's Mission and Vision are to protect, empower and celebrate our seniors," shared founder Jean Lowrie-Chin. The 12,000-member organisation is a non-profit, non-denominational, and non-political organisation for people 40 and over and is committed to aiding some of the island's most vulnerable. The organisation has, too, received support from the Digicel, and JPS Foundations.

Volunteering and supporting the arts foster social connections and a sense of community, especially among retirees. They, too, enhance mental well-being, overall health, and quality of life after retirement. Rosealee Lewis, the CCRP parish representative for Trelawny, exclaimed, "I came all the way from Falmouth to see it, and I did not regret it."