By Hon. E. P. Chet Greene
June 14 2026 | Featured Story
We knew this season would come. Not just the hurricane season although that is certainly upon us. I refer specifically to the season of doing. Elections and resulting honeymoon periods are over and the season of showing up, of real community work is here. This season requires vision meeting the pavement, garbage piles, school auditoriums and church pews. Put simple, all de talk done.
Over the next several weeks, the community of St. Paul will face one of our busiest schedules in recent memory. Town hall meetings, a bulk waste cleanup, primary school graduations, Father’s Day celebrations, children’s summer camp and senior citizens summer excursion. Each of these alone is worthy of our attention. Together, they present a test of our collective will to become the community we keep saying we want to be.
Put simple, this is not a complaint about being busy. This is an invitation to embrace the busyness as a form of rebuilding.
On 19 June, Liberta will host a town hall meeting. On 22 June, Cobbs Cross will do the same. These are not photo opportunities. They are the raw machinery of local democracy. If you are tired of decisions being made without you, this is your remedy. Come with questions. Come with frustrations. But come also with solutions because the new St. Paul is not built by critics alone.
The 2026 hurricane season is upon us. Meteorology aside, we know what wind and rain do to bulk waste left carelessly in yards and alleys. That old sofa becomes a battering ram. Those broken pallets become shrapnel.
From 18 to 24 June, every household has a one week window to responsibly dispose of bulk waste. This is not merely a sanitation exercise. It is an act of neighbourly love. Clear your property and you may save your neighbour’s roof. Let us rid our community of these hazards before a storm does the ridding for us.
In this renaissance period we have declared, where we agree to positively engage and support the achievements of our young people, words are no longer enough. Our three primary schools are holding graduation exercises and so too All Saints and Irene B. Williams Secondary Schools. Parents, grandparents, church leaders and community elders, you are expected to be present.
Do not underestimate what a child feels when they scan a crowd and see familiar faces that are not legally required to be there. Your attendance is a sermon without a pulpit. It says: We see you. We are proud of you. You belong to us.
Then here comes an opportunity to celebrate Father’s Day. Too often in St. Paul it has been a lacklustre observance, a grudging acknowledgment compared to the full throated celebration of Mother’s Day. That is not an attack of jealousy on our mothers. That is just a confession of our own neglect.
This year, I am asking every church, every household and every community space to elevate the recognition of fathers. Not necessarily with expensive gifts but with honour. With presence. With the simple acknowledgment that a community that does not celebrate its fathers will struggle to raise its children well. Let us rewrite the value of this day.
No sooner will the bulk waste campaign close than we turn to our children once more. From 6 July to 24 July, the 2026 edition of the Children’s Summer Camp will be held. This is not babysitting. This is structured engagement with activities that build confidence, teach new skills and cooperation while keeping our young people active and safe during the long school break.
Parents, do not let the summer pass passively. Enrol your children. Volunteers, do not wait to be asked. Step forward. A summer camp is only as strong as the community that surrounds it. What we invest in these three weeks will return to our entire community for years to come.
On 30 July, immediately following the camp, we will hold the annual Senior Citizens Summer Excursion. This is a day set aside for those who built the St. Paul we inherited. Many of these veterans now move more quietly through our streets or do not see much of them but their value has not diminished in our eyes.
We need drivers, chaperons, sponsors and simply neighbours who will show up to see our seniors off with a smile. If you cannot attend the excursion itself, contribute a meal, some liquid refreshment or a farewell wave from your gate.
Let our elders feel that they are not forgotten in this busy season but are in fact its crowning purpose.
None of this is utopian. I did not come to you in the last election promising a fantasy. I promised a leadership model rooted in shared, sometimes exhausting but always worthwhile collaboration. You supported that vision. Now the vision requires your feet, not just your applause.
Strong and successful communities are not delivered like parcels. They are built slowly, awkwardly, gloriously, by the combined efforts of homes, churches, schools and local leaders working in genuine partnership.
Again here is the schedule. Here is the invitation. Here is the challenge.
Show up to Liberta and Cobbs Cross town hall meetings. Clean your bulk waste. Clap for our graduates. Honour a father. Send a child to camp. Support our seniors’ excursion.
This is how we grow. This is how we will build the new St. Paul.
The rubber meets the road. The real work begins.
By Hon. E. P. Chet Greene
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