Our mission...
    ...is to provide life enriching access to health care and education to Jamaica's
children in greatest need.

The Great Shape! Story

Great Shape! was born in 1988 as a compassionate response to the devastation of Hurricane Gilbert. In that year, founder Myrtle Franklin, known as Miss Merkle to the Jamaican children, set about gathering clothing, food, monies and other needed items and shipped them to the Western part of the Island where she had befriended a village.

Since those early days, Great Shape has grown into a proactive, grassroots international social service organization that partners with various Jamaican schools and other organizations to provide empowering assistance to Jamaican children in need.

Our successful projects (hyperlink here to projects) have focused on education, health care, community development and sports. Our mission statement is “An international partnership dedicated to empowering Jamaican children in need”.

Great Shape is a 100% volunteer non governmental 501 c 3 charitable
non-profit organization that is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Our Board of Directors (hyperlink to Board) and volunteer staff (link to volunteer staff), with the support of our sponsors and donors (links to sponsors and donors), have worked tirelessly to forge relationships with our Jamaican (link to partners and affiliates) partners and affiliates to complete many great works for Jamaican children. Those who know about our work (hyperlink to recommendations) give high marks of recommendation to the integrity and effectiveness of our work.