St. Catherine Parish Awards for 10 Community Workers

Heroes Day award is pushing those devoted to community work in the parish of St. Catherine, to continue in their missions for better quality of life for their fellow citizens.

Come Monday, October 18, 10 persons who have been doing voluntary work in the parish, will be recognised by the St. Catherine Municipal Corporation during a virtual ceremony.

For educator, Pearline Gordon, who will be awarded in the Community Development category, it has “been a smiling moment” since she was informed two weeks ago that she made it to the list of persons to be awarded this year.

“I feel sense of worth, from just being told that ‘you are doing a good job.’ I feel recognised and a certain level accomplishment that you have done well. I am very grateful, and being given this award, is motivating. It is a booster to keep doing good,” she tells JIS News.

Miss Gordon who is a teacher at the Kitson Town Primary School, has been serving in the education system for over 30 years. She says teaching chose her and she was first inspired to get in the “social aspect” of the schools while teaching at the Rose Garden Preparatory School in St. Andrew, given her experience with the Jamaica 4-H Clubs.

In the early years, she and others would lobby other kindhearted persons to obtain Christmas gifts and educational items for needy students. She shares that while “it was tiresome at times, it was never a burden,” because it aided in the development of the students.

At the start of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, when schooling went online, having discovered that some children were impacted from lack of computer devices, she reached out to a past student of the school and was successful in getting a tablet for a “student who was never absent and never late, and he has shown great improvement.

“Following, I continued to look, because there were other children who needed support and my son and I put head and hearts together and funds,” for the purchasing of tablets for other students at the school.

Describing her work as a “duty” to help, Miss Gordon says other efforts have been to set aside personal resources for textbooks and food items, where she assisted needy families in the community. Teaching, she believes, requires being part of people to achieve “stakeholder partnership.”

“I know what it is like to be in need and not having someone there, a shoulder to lean on, so in any way I can reach out, even sacrificially to help, I am willing to do so, because I know what it is like for someone to reach out to me and my family,” she states.

She outlines that her philanthropic work has continued because she has been “energised with the hope and confidence that greater things would happen if I continued to have faith and work with the parents and the students during and after school hours.”

In her first year’s action plan at the Kitson Town Primary School she listed as one of her main objectives to improve the classroom. She wanted it to be conducive to learning with safe and suitable furniture for the students and herself. She wrote to the Food For the Poor (FFP) appealing for partnership in transforming the classroom as a stakeholder “who believes in nation building”.

“This commitment was graciously honoured when FFP responded that summer with furniture for the classroom. That boosted my confidence to continue working on helping out in whatever way I could to assist in developing the school and the community,” the teacher tells JIS News.

Captain Llyod Burke who has been a member of the Jamaica Combined Cadet Force for some 32 years, will be awarded in the category of Uniformed Groups. He says the award is a “morale booster” to serve for many more years.

“To be awarded is a good feeling, and satisfying, and it goes to show that the work that I have put in is being recognised. This award is an additional motivation to continue,” Captain Burke tells JIS News.

The Assistant Bursar at the St. Jago High School, in crediting the Cadet Force for transforming the lives of many troubled youth, recalls that in 2005 when he should have been with family, he was managing an emergency shelter for persons who had to use it while a hurricane was affecting the island. He says it was the skills gained from the Force which allowed him to deal with uproar at the facility.

“It stuck with me, because I should have been at the birth of my daughter but I was not there, because I was managing a shelter and babies were there, and that is

one of the reasons why I had made some unpopular decisions at the end; everyone understood why I made the decision and was comfortable,” he shares.

Mayor of Spanish Town, Councillor Norman Scott, says it is important that even in the pandemic, the awardees are given their recognition for service that they have given to the parish, and “the municipality has seen their value, and is showing appreciation to their work,” the Mayor states.

The other awardees are: Major Swayne Beckles, Uniformed Groups; Major Kayla-Jo Allen, Uniformed Groups; Oral Allen, Community Development; Dr. Heather Sheriff, Health and Community Development; Lorraine Edwards, Community Development; Sandra Small-Brown, Culture; Dr. Raymoth Notice, and Rohan Barrett, Community Development.