The smell of freshly popped popcorn and grilled hotdogs permeated the air in Parade Gardens, Kingston, last Friday, signalling the impending festivities at the annual back-to-school treat hosted by Novelette Edwards-Tomlinson. Having spent her early years in the community of Tel-Aviv with her parents, Darrel Edwards and Angela Harvey, and six siblings, sounds of gunshots were a feature of daily life. Her family did not escape the grasp of poverty, but her father ensured that they knew education was their sole priority and the only tool that could uplift them from violence.
"He worked at the licence depot and he didn't even want us to go to the window. He made sure that we focused on our education; he did his best for us to come out to something. I was called 'Dirty Brain' because I was from the ghetto, but I was very educated.
I didn't let my background affect me, I was very intelligent," Edwards-Tomlinson joked. Her father's stern hand in her education reaped rewards as she completed her secondary education at the St Hugh's High School in 1982 and enrolled in the Kingston School of Nursing. She graduated as a registered nurse in 1986 and worked at the Bellevue Hospital, Kingston Public Hospital, and the Bustamante Hospital for Children before migrating to Canada in 1989.
It was there that Edwards-Tomlinson started her specialisation in pediatrics. "It's all about the children. Children are special, they appreciate what you do for them.
They are extremely grateful, but I have dedicated my life to the well-being of children," she said. It is for that reason that the mother of three started the Dedicated and Devoted Children Charity in 2015, following her father's death. "My father was big on education, so that is the reason why I am trying to ensure that each and every child who is here today, if it's even a backpack for them to go to school, they need to get an education," Edwards-Tomlinson said, noting that she expected more than 300 students between ages four to 12 to benefit from her philanthropic efforts.
"I know that a lot of parents in Central Kingson, they cannot afford a backpack. So if I can donate it to them, why not? I remember going to school. It was a struggle, but I was a little bit better because my father and mother worked hard.
But a lot of the people now in Central Kingston having kids, have fallen by the wayside. So growing up, and I didn't have this luxury. So at my old age, I am filling that void by giving back," she told the news team.
In addition to the annual charity event, she assists with tuition and other miscellaneous payments for students at her alma mater, and assists residents of Tel-Aviv should they have a medical need. "I help create GoFundMe campaigns, I help with lunch money, and there is a young lady [who] had an accident that left her paralysed from the leg down and I have been very instrumental with her care. I help with everybody.
When I see their smiles, every pain and suffering and all the trauma of the ghetto that still lives within you, this is like a healing process. It takes away the pain, and this is where I use as my therapy. I have lived a life of trauma, but now, with this (her charity) I am a different person.
This is my healing," Edwards-Tomlinson expressed..
