CDC, SDC partner to construct home for elderly woman

The Warsop Community Development Committee (CDC) in Trelawny and the Social Development Commission (SDC) have joined hands and heart to construct a house for an elderly woman in the community who has been living in less-than-ideal conditions.

Seventy-one-year-old Violet Palmer is a widow and has no children. She has been depending on other relatives for shelter at a house that is not suitable for accommodation.

Construction of the one-bedroom concrete structure commenced in August 2021 and is nearing completion.

Upon recognising Palmer’s situation, treasurer for the Warsop CDC, Yvonne Fearon, led the charge to construct a house for the elderly woman, under the committee’s Helping Hands Outreach programme.

The programme was set up to investigate those who are vulnerable in the community so that support can be provided them. The programme has been in place for approximately three years.

The retired principal said that she was moved with emotions to see the challenges that the elderly woman faced after a visit to her home to deliver care packages.

Fearon said the woman’s situation was brought to the attention of the CDC, following which immediate action was taken to construct a comfortable abode for her.

“We are an organisation that looks out for the less fortunate … so we would give our shut-ins and vulnerable members of the community care packages. On one occasion when we went to deliver the care packages, one of the recipients was this lady and she asked us for two sheets of ply board,” Fearon recounted.

“When we looked at the house, we said that two sheets of ply could not do anything because she needed a room. When we went to the CDC meeting afterwards and we brought it to the table, the SDC parish officer Phillip Spence encouraged us to give her a room, so we planned from there,” Fearon added.

A project proposal was developed with the help of the SDC and funding was solicited from members of the CDC, as well as the Jamaican diaspora.

“How we got help is that we asked a few members of the CDC and mostly our friends and we solicited help from some people abroad and a few people here in Jamaica,” she explained.

‘SENSE OF PRIDE, JOY’

Fearon said she “feels a sense of pride and joy” to be able to lend a helping hand to the people in the community “in some way or the other”.

Community member Sheryl Logan manages the day-to-day operations at the construction site.

She said she did not hesitate to join the project after witnessing first-hand, the dilapidated structure that Palmer called home.

Logan said that she helped to rally support from members of the community, some of whom contributed materials for construction.

“I said, let us see what we can do as a community to help her by giving her a concrete structure. So far so good. It is a bit difficult, but I use my phone to beg around the area and I use it to beg abroad. People responded to me by giving a bag of cement, a length of steel etc,” she indicated.

Logan added that while the structure is almost complete, more support is needed to install flooring and fixtures.

Spence, in sharing the commission’s involvement, said that SDC remains committed to facilitating the empowerment of citizens across the island, especially those who are underprivileged.

He said he is pleased to see the tremendous outpouring of support from members of the community, some of whom gave of their time to help rescue the elderly woman from her destitute condition.

JIS