Veolia Water NY Employee Assists Jamaican Relief Effort
When Vanessa Armstrong joined Veolia’s New York team in 2023, she didn’t expect her work would take her to Jamaica.
But, that’s where this New Rochelle-based Water Quality Specialist and Laboratory Supervisor spent the holidays as part of a team working to bring potable water back to 5,000 St. James residents affected by Hurricane Melissa.
Vanessa was deployed to Jamaica by VeoliaForce – Veolia Foundation’s international natural disaster crisis response team. She volunteered to join the force mid-2025, completed her training in September and was mobilized just a few months later with only three days’ notice.
She arrived to find a community desperate for help. “People were out there in the mornings waiting for us to start up the system so they could brush their teeth,” Vanessa said, explaining that the community was having a hard time accessing drinking water and that price gauging at nearby markets had become a problem for many.
Vanessa’s deployment spanned three weeks, with team members working 12-hour shifts, seven days each week. Her assignment while in St. James was to train the local team to manage the storage of the Aquaforce water purification systems after the relief mission is complete.
When asked about what she values most about her recent experience in Jamaica, Vanessa replied, “I left with a renewed sense of purpose and humility. It felt good to be able to give back to the community and to people who look like me. They gained a lot by us being there, but we gained a lot, too.”
Vanessa is one of three Veolia New York employees who have recently trained to be part of the VeoliaForce. Over the past year, the organization has deployed two other teams to locations around the world to assist with disaster relief.
https://www.fondation.veolia.com/en/skills-sponsorship/our-veoliaforce-missions