A brush with good fortune

Some people mend fences. In St. Ann, Jamaica, the Builders Club at Brown’s Town Primary School built one—and painted it too. The ambitious project capped off an aggressive schedule of service and fundraising for the club the past two school years.

Volunteers paint a picket fence erected by the Builders Club of Jamaica’s Brown’s Town Elementary School while Builders wash the walls of their school in the background.

Brown’s Town Builders do fence painting and landscaping work at their school, with help from adult volunteers.

Described as a “very hard-working set of students” by faculty advisor Carlene Bonner-Chambers, the Builders Club began its service leanings by launching several fundraisers, including selling chocolate and doughnuts at school and showing a movie. Profits underwrote the club’s many service projects, including:

• Purchasing and collecting toys and other tokens for children spending the Christmas holiday season at the St. Ann’s Bay Hospital. Builders also read and donated storybooks to the children.

• Collecting clothes and cosmetics for the elderly and physically challenged residents at St. Ann’s Bay Infirmary. The students toured the facility and staged a performance of entertainment for the elderly residents.

• With help from their parents, erecting picket fences at the school to protect its gardens.

Carlene notes that funds ran out before the Builders Club could paint the fences. So this past spring, club members sent letters to hardware stores asking for donations of paint and painting supplies. “We got a good response,” she says, “and the kids were able to finish the project, though there might have been more paint on their bodies than on the fences.”