Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Days af­ter the Good­will In­dus­tries build­ing on Wright­son Road Ex­ten­sion was dam­aged af­ter sev­er­al gal­va­nized sheets blew off the roof, the Unit­ed Grand Lodge of Eng­land has do­nat­ed $40,000 to as­sist with the re­pairs.

For­mer Lon­don May­or and Deputy Grand Mas­ter Sir David H Wooton and Deputy Grand Di­rec­tor of Cer­e­monies Dr Si­mon K Archer, who are in the coun­try to in­stall the new Grand Mas­ter for the Dis­trict Grand Lodge of T&T, hand­ed over a cheque to of­fi­cials of Good­will on Fri­dayl.

“Freema­son­ry across the world has very strong val­ues. One of the main val­ues is do­ing what we can to help those who have less than we have, those who have needs, whether it’s home or mon­ey, or skills and there­fore what Good­will In­dus­tries does is ab­solute­ly in line with that be­cause it brings skills and re­sources to teach young peo­ple who don’t have ei­ther skills and re­sources and gives them a greater chance of em­ploy­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties in life.”

Good­will In­dus­tries Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Bar­bara Allen said ten gal­vanised sheets from the roof of the build­ing land­ed in the Jean Pierre Com­plex dur­ing “a twister of some kind.”

“I feel so proud just to be con­sid­ered, and to be se­lect­ed to re­ceive this do­na­tion from the Grand Lodge of the UK,” she said.

“It’s good to know that some­body cares even so many miles away. It makes me feel that I can do ten times more than I am do­ing. I just have to push and dig a lit­tle deep­er re­gard­less of what ob­sta­cles may come our way. God has been good to us re­gard­less of what­ev­er hap­pens so we now find our­selves in a po­si­tion where we can re­ceive some­thing know­ing that we have such hu­mon­gous bills at the mo­ment be­cause of the leaks that we are hav­ing.”

Ger­ard Mendes will be in­stalled as the new Dis­trict Grand Mas­ter of the Dis­trict Grand Lodge of T&T this week­end.