Labour Day Well Supported In Manchester And St. Elizabeth

The planting of over 600 trees in over 15 parish council divisions and the refurbishing of the hurricane-ravaged Devon community centre took centre stage yesterday (May 23) as the citizens of Manchester came out to work on Labour Day.
Deputy Mayor for Mandeville, Sally Porteous told JIS News that the original plan was to plant all 600 trees in Mandeville “but upon consideration, we realised that there were a lot of other areas particularly in the south that were damaged by both the hurricanes and the drought, so we have given each councillor/caretaker a number of plants to establish in his or her area”.
She said that the tree planting programme was going to be a concentrated “on going effort that we will be doing throughout the year,” noting that a number of environmentalists would be guiding the exercise.
“These persons will actually be able to say to us that these are the methods we should employ, as well as the areas that are the best in terms of location for the plants.in terms of our vision for the beautification of Mandeville. We have on order some 400 ornamental pui trees, which we intend to plant along the Winston Jones highway right up to Mandeville,” she informed.
Also during the day, the Lion’s Club assisted with the painting of a number of pedestrian crossings as well as the erection of some 40 stop signs in the capital town, while work was done on a number of “key sidewalks” and trees were replanted along the median strip.
Over in the breadbasket parish of St. Elizabeth, work began quite early on the Flagaman community centre, which was chosen as the parish project by the local Labour Day committee.
Speaking to JIS News, Mayor of Black River, Franklyn Witter stated that both hurricanes Charley and Ivan had done extensive damage to the centre.
“Traditionally, this has served as a very important meeting point for many of the farmers of this region, especially the local farmers association. It is in a bad way but we are working to get things restored as soon as possible so that it can once again be used by the residents of the area,” he said.
Mayor Witter outlined some of the work that was to be undertaken by his team with support coming from a number of other organisations as well as concerned individuals. “We are doing extensive work on the roof, which is very badly damaged. We have to replace a number of windows, as well as the electrical wirings. I wish to thank those who are here helping with this effort today,” he said.