On a crisp September morning, Andre Williams rose before dawn in a modest farmhouse tucked into the Schoharie Valley. By sunrise, he was already among the apple trees, a canvas bag strapped across his chest, his hands moving quickly and gently through rows heavy with fruit. Each apple he picked, one of thousands he would gather that week, carried a purpose beyond the orchard: the chance to keep his children in school and his wife in nursing college back home in Jamaica.

“This is not just work,” Williams said. “This is how I make sure my family has a future.”

Williams, 40, is one of more than 10,000 Jamaicans who travel each year to the United States under the federal H-2A program. For him, the decision was simple economics. At a gas station job in Clarendon, his weekly pay was about 10,000 Jamaican dollars, roughly $65. At Terrace Mountain Orchard in Schoharie, his paycheck is closer to $700. “What I make here in a week, I make in maybe two months in Jamaica,” he said.

The math is life-altering. Each Friday, part of his wages is wired home; the rest he uses to buy American goods that are cheaper or unavailable in Jamaica. His family receives not only money but packages, clothes, household items, small comforts that remind them they are cared for even in his absence.

Before arriving in Schoharie in 2022, Williams worked on a larger farm near the Canadian border, where dozens of Jamaican men shared cramped quarters. Contact with owners was rare. “In three years, I never spoke to the owner,” Williams recalled. “Only the supervisor and other Jamaicans.”

Schoharie has been different. At Terrace Mountain Orchard, he and fellow worker Willis Newman are the only two Jamaicans tending 50 acres of trees. That intimacy has brought not only more responsibility but a sense of belonging. He speaks with the owners daily, chats with local staff in the farm store, and is recognized in the village when he shops or browses garage sales on his days off.

“I like it here because I get to talk to different people, not just Jamaicans,” he said. “It makes you feel more a part of the place.”

The gains, however, come with sacrifice. For six months of the year, Williams is more than a thousand miles from his wife and children. FaceTime calls soften the distance but cannot erase it. He admits to missing birthdays, school events, and the ordinary rituals of family life.

“There is no easy way to be gone so long,” he said. “But I think of what it gives them, and I know I must stay strong.”

Williams plans to keep returning to Schoharie for years to come. He hopes to match Newman, who has logged 16 seasons in the valley and is a fixture in the community. “I’ve got 20 years left in me if I want to catch up with him,” Williams said with a smile.

For now, though, each season is enough: six months of separation, six months of sacrifice, six months of work that holds together a family’s future.

“This job is not easy,” Williams admitted, pausing between rows. “But when I see my children on the video call, and they’re laughing, and they’re in school, I know it’s worth every apple I pick.”