GoodHeart | Chester Bishop’s dedicated call for service
Published:Saturday | January 4, 2025 | 12:06 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
When Jamaicans in Florida want to navigate the challenges of donating in bulk to the island, Chester Bishop is often the person they turn to for advice or assistance. Over 20 years ago, Bishop, a Jamaican now living in Florida, committed himself to establishing, volunteering, and taking on leadership roles with the Kiwanis Club of Lauderdale Lakes. At 60, he never imagined he would become the go-to person for Jamaicans in the diaspora who want to give back to their country.
Bishop told GoodHeart that it was through the club and its efforts to donate back to Jamaica in his younger years that he developed a lasting desire to organise fundraisers and give back to the island.
“Primarily, we’ve been assisting, when it comes to Jamaica, a lot of high schools’ alumni associations. I went to St Jago High School, so I’ve done a lot with St Jago. It’s not something that I really focus on in terms of keeping track of whom we’ve helped, but [it has been] a lot of alumni associations,” Bishop said.
“I had a lot of friends who had different organisations in Jamaica and they would all ask for help, and I’m one of those people who find it hard to say no. This made me work more closely with the consul general’s office in Florida over the years. They’ve always had requests for help, and we’ve always been there to help them,” he added.
In 2024, Bishop worked closely with Food For The Poor Jamaica to send donations for distribution to Dinthill High School, St Jago High School, Cornwall College, the Montego Bay High School Alumni Association, and the United Friends of Highgate.
“A lot of them are actually contributing funds to whatever fundraising effort they have. Over the years, United Friends of Highgate have collected funds for ambulances and medical equipment, so that’s what the funding goes towards. Most of it is contribution directly from our company, whether it’s Attorneys Title Partners; the title company or Housing Foundation of America, the non-profit or just our personal funds.”
He also ran for city commissioner in Hollywood 25 years ago, which allowed him to meet several local officials. Although he did not win, the experience helped him establish connections for future donations. Additionally, he served on several commission advisory boards, was president of the Broward County Affordable Housing Task Force, and president of the South Florida Board of Realtist.
As a real estate business owner who assists individuals with applying for homeownership loans, Bishop said it was only right for him and his wife, Ann Lee Bishop, to commit to raising funds to help build houses for the less fortunate in Jamaica. In 2023 and 2024, he was able to send funds to build one house each year, with the most recent being built as part of the Diaspora Conference’s projects on June 20, 2024. The event allowed diaspora members to participate in pre-arranged projects in communities across the island.
The project, titled ‘Build a House in One Day’, involved constructing a home for a family of four in St James. Bishop donated funds to Food For The Poor Jamaica to carry out the work, and his wife attended to represent him.
Although he is unable to return to Jamaica for every project, Bishop prefers to send funds to a trusted charity like Food For The Poor Jamaica to manage the initiatives.
“Food For The Poor, in the last couple years, I think it’s such a worthy cause, and they do so much with whatever money they have. They don’t waste a lot of it. Most of it goes directly towards the programmes and to administration that we hope to continue working with them. They’re probably going to be one of our big focus [in 2025] because they actually build homes in Jamaica and we really think that’s a very worthy cause,” Bishop explained.
While living in an area in Florida, Bishop said it was only fitting for him to start the Housing Foundation of America, which also does non-profit activities.
“Primarily, a lot of our clients are from the Caribbean. Most of them are from Jamaica. We have free home buyer workshops where we go over the whole home buying process, credit and budgeting, title, what to look out for in the inspections, fair housing when it comes to discrimination and so forth, the real estate contract, the mortgage process, all of that is covered as part of our education for the first-time home buyer.”