GUY’S HILL: Residents repair post office, appeal for it to be re-opened
November 20, 2019
Chairman of the Guy’s Hill Community Development Committee in St Catherine, Irvin Small, yesterday made an impassioned appeal for Postmaster General Michael Gentles to reopen the Guy’s Hill Post Office.
He said members of the community struggled and repaired the facility because, among other things, senior citizens from Guy’s Hill are exposed to ‘dangerous’ circumstances when they travel several miles to collect welfare benefits through Linstead Post Office.
Small noted that one female senior citizen, who doesn’t seem to remember Linstead well, was eventually found in another community when she should have been in Linstead town.
He added that senior citizens sometimes are unable to pay fares because the funds they travel to collect in Linstead are sometimes not ready.
“I go to Linstead and I see some poor old ladies – the men yes, but the poor old ladies, who can barely move, go to collect their little PATH money and some go to collect pension. It is a dangerous thing for them…” Small said.
“We cannot afford to allow these things to continue to happen, and so we have appealed to the Postmaster General to have our post office reopened, because we have done all that we could do to have it reopened.”
Small, who warned that community members may end up protesting if the Postmaster General does not budge, explained the significant effort that residents poured into having the post office repaired.
“The post office was in a terrible state of disrepair and we had no money. Many people believe that we got money from Government, but we did not get any money from Government. We got $50,000 from the Member of Parliament [Leslie Campbell], and we did our fundraising effort, we begged, and even now we owe money for material…” Small disclosed.
He also said: “The area of the post office that was of concern is now in very good condition. As you can see, we painted it up, and we would not paint it if we did not repair it.”
Small, who noted that the post office was closed two-and-a-half years ago because the facility had fallen into a state of disrepair, was speaking during an International Men’s Day Award Ceremony yesterday, November 19. It was held inside the Town Hall in Guy’s Hill under the auspices of the Lasco Top Cop, Woman Corporal Samantha Brown-Thompson.
By Horace Mills, Journalist; B.A. in Media and Communications; CARIMAC, University of the West Indies
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