Alumni group gives back to Princess Margaret Secondary School

Students of the Princess Margaret Secondary School recently received a donation of stationery and other school supplies from the school’s 1972 to 1978 Alumni Group.

Spokesman for the Alumni Group, Vincent Carter told the Barbados Advocate that the group, comprising of both local and overseas based past students, was eager to find ways of giving back to the school, as a means of showing their appreciation for the educational institution which prepared them for the real world.

“My group is the 1972 to 1978 Class. We would have started about five years ago with a small number of persons, who would have gotten the idea to let us get together and do something for our school. So there were about five individuals who got together and formed a small steering committee, to look at some ideas of how we could give back to the school,” Carter explained.

“As a matter of fact, we have two main objectives in this group right now. The main two objectives are, one, giving back to the school and community and then socialisation, because we would not have seen each other in some cases for almost 30 or 40 years and then there are those ones who are also overseas, who would have migrated to (the bigger) countries and are residing over there now and they themselves are also members of this group. As a matter of fact, a number of the supplies were sent in from overseas by some of those individuals and then we added to it, to make it a nice presentation,” Carter further revealed.

“We would have also done some work at the school. We painted all the bathrooms, also the gazebo, along with the benches and the podium on the platform, we would have donated this just recently to the school also. Only a few weeks ago we painted the first form block in a very bright yellow, both the interior and exterior of the classrooms, with the help of the teachers,” the group’s spokesman further indicated.

Acknowledging that there are a number of other projects the group hopes to work on at the school, he stated, “You have to appreciate who actually prepared you for the world and definitely it is your education and your school and by all means you have to show your gratitude by giving back. As the Bible says, it is better to give
than receive and this is what we do all the time”.

Jonathan Corbin, Principal of Princess Margaret Secondary was most grateful for the donation.

“I am exceedingly gratified that the Class of 72 to 78 has seen it fit to make this donation to the students. I am not surprised though, because as recently as last term, they made a sizeable donation not only of cash, but also in terms of kind, when they presented themselves and did quite a lot of painting at the school. So it’s a vibrant group, an active group and I hope that will continue, because that augurs well for the students and what we can do for them, in terms of having materials to use,” Corbin told the Barbados Advocate.