When Jamesly Jesse was just two years old, he survived five harrowing days trapped beneath rubble after a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in 2010. Orphaned and injured, he was taken to a hospital in Milot where staff cared for him so lovingly, they once hung a sign near his crib that read: “Do not pick me up” because so many people wanted to hold him.
That same hospital would later become the focus of Jamesly’s own mission of love, because fate wasn’t done writing his story.
Enter Mary Jesse, an orthopedic volunteer from Illinois. Ten months after the earthquake, she met Jamesly while working in that very hospital. “It’s very humbling that our paths wouldn’t have crossed without the earthquake,” Mary said. She and her husband Nathan originally planned to bring Jamesly to the U.S. for medical care, but soon realized: “We had nothing to take him back to.” They adopted him instead.
By 2013, 4-year-old Jamesly was playing T-ball in Moweaqua, Illinois, cheered on by an entire park. “Everyone took him in, and everything just took off from there,” Nathan said.
Now 16, Jamesly is an Eagle Scout, and he’s never forgotten where he came from. Inspired by the hospital that saved his life, he launched a campaign to raise $17,500 for 50,000 meals. But he didn’t stop there.
“He didn’t even blink an eye,” Nathan said. “Then Jamesly said, ‘What’s the most we can pack in a day?’ Well, 100,000 meals.”
With the help of 430 volunteers, everyone from preschoolers to physicians, Jamesly hosted a massive “packathon” in his high school gym in October 2023. The meals were delivered straight to Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Haiti.
“It’s not really about any of the accolades,” Jamesly said. “It’s about making sure people know there are other people out there who need food.”
For his efforts, Jamesly was awarded the prestigious 2025 Glenn A. and Melinda W. Adams National Eagle Scout Service Project of the Year Award. But even more moving was the reunion with Dr. Bill Guyol, who had treated Jamesly as a toddler and was amazed to meet the confident young man he’d become.
“It is a tribute to Mary and Nathan that they took this broken, orphaned child and raised him to be such a fine young man,” Guyol said. “What I admire most about him is his strong faith and his generosity of spirit.”
Though Jamesly hasn’t been back to Haiti yet, political unrest has made it unsafe, he said he hasn’t ruled it out. “It’s definitely been a thought of mine [on] how I can make it back to make an impact there,” he said.
And impact, he has.
“I have kids that look up to me,” he said, “but I know they’re going to make an impact as they grow up too.”
Majically, the boy once held so tightly in a Haitian hospital is now holding up the world, with heart, hope, and 100,000 meals.
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