This Care Day, you can help us keep our promise of sustaining loving, lifelong homes for the most vulnerable.
What is Care Day? Keeping the promise of lifelong care
Care Day is Mustard Seed Communities’ annual day of giving, held on September 15, 2026. The day supports loving, lifelong care for children and adults with disabilities who have nowhere else to go.
From today through Care Day, your gift will be doubled, multiplying your impact. We invite you on our nearly 50-year journey of keeping that promise >>>
Lifelong care is delivered by the loving hands of countless women—MSC’s caregivers. At Gift of Hope in Jamaica, the bond between caregiver Camille Barrett and resident Mark offers a glimpse into what care means at MSC, and the promise at the heart of MSC for almost five decades.
“He loves to smile. I refer to Mark as having a killer smile because he really has a beautiful smile,” says Camille Barrett, a caregiver at Gift of Hope in Jamaica.
Spend time with Mark and Camille, and you will notice just how well she knows him.
She knows his personality, knows what brings him joy, and recognizes his needs and the ways he communicates. There is an affection and familiarity between them that comes from sharing life together.
This relationship gets to the heart of care at Mustard Seed Communities.
The promise began nearly 50 years ago
Mustard Seed Communities was founded in Jamaica in 1978 by Msgr. Gregory Ramkissoon.
Living in Kingston, Msgr. Gregory noticed a lack of safe, reliable housing and care for individuals with disabilities and decided to take action. He constructed a small school, and within a few years the school became a home.
Soon, the home stood for something even greater: a commitment to be a family for people who have nowhere else to go.
Msgr. Gregory expressed MSC’s commitment simply:
We promise each child that they will never be abandoned twice.
That promise has shaped Mustard Seed ever since.
New homes and programs followed in Jamaica and eventually in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe (including a new home just opened in August 2026), and Malawi.
Through decades of growth, the heart of the mission has remained the same: when someone becomes part of the Mustard Seed family, we commit to caring for them for life.
Care is in the everyday
Love finds infinite ways to express itself when care is an everyday commitment.
For caregivers like Camille, it begins the moment residents wake up in the morning.
Camille’s care and the work of all caregivers at MSC means helping children bathe, dress, brush their teeth, and move safely from a bed into a wheelchair. It means preparing nutritious meals and helping residents who need support eating or drinking. It means administering medication, monitoring health needs, attending medical appointments, and making sure therapies and treatments are part of their everyday routine.
And our commitment reaches farther than meeting only everyday needs. Our care means opportunities to learn and thrive.
It means physical and occupational therapy, movement, recreation, music, play, and activities that help residents develop their abilities and participate as fully as possible in their communities.
Most of all, our care means knowing the individual behind all of those needs.
It is deeply practical but also deeply relational. A caregiver learns how a child communicates without words, what makes them laugh, when they are uncomfortable, what helps them feel safe. Residents are cared for as whole people—body, mind, and spirit.
Spiritual care has been woven into Mustard Seed Communities from the beginning. Rooted in the Catholic faith and the healing ministry of Jesus Christ, prayer, worship, and reflection are woven into the fabric of life as part of recognizing the dignity and sacred worth of each person.
Care through every stage of life
Nobody ages out of MSC. As residents grow, our care has to grow with them.
We learn new therapies, access different equipment, change nutritional plans, add greater medical support, and uncover new ways to help residents feel comfortable and understood. Our care adapts so that we can stand by a child as they grow and flourish as adults, never leaving their side.
Care Day: Keeping the Promise
On September 15, 2026, Mustard Seed Communities will celebrate our annual day of giving with a new name: Care Day.
You can help us keep the promise that children and adults with disabilities who have nowhere else to go will have a family who will continue to care for them throughout their lives.
Stand with us in this mission
From now through Care Day, every gift will be matched, dollar for dollar, doubling your impact in the lives of children and adults with disabilities who call MSC home.