The constituents of Elizabeth benefitted from a young Self Starter company’s desire to help the community when Dr. Duane Sands teamed up with Bahamas Striping to refresh the area’s basketball court last weekend.
Atario Mitchell, President of Bahamas Striping, one of the outstanding success stories of the government’s Self Starter Program, approached Dr. Duane Sands to find ways of helping Mitchell’s own Elizabeth Constituency. Having heard that Bahamas Striping recently donated the painting of three basketball courts late last year in the Pinewood area, Dr. Sands approached the Officer-In-Charge at the Northeastern Division, Superintendent Ismella Davis, for permission to repaint the worn out basketball court near the Elizabeth Estates police station. Superintendent Davis was pleased that one of the local constituency’s youths would volunteer to help free of charge.
While watching the operation and even helping paint himself, Dr. Sands learnt a lot about Bahamas Striping and its ongoing success that started with a $5,000 Self Starter grant from the Ministry of Youth, Sports & Cultures more than two years ago.
“It’s phenomenal what this young team has been able to achieve in such a short time. It’s an inspiration – not just for experienced adults, but particularly for the youth. Atario’s desire to help brighten up the Elizabeth Constituency speaks volumes of the goodness of our Bahamian youth. This basketball court is in need of repair and so are many parts of this area. It was heartwarming to see Atario and his young team step forward and ask how he could help,” said Dr. Sands.
“This was an ideal opportunity for me to personally see the fruits of two our most important government initiatives to combat the effects of the world recession. Here’s a company that people rally around to help because of its Self Starter success and now it’s training many more youths than it normally could afford because of The National Job Readiness & Training Initiative,” added Sands.
Mitchell explained he was inspired to reach out to make Elizabeth a better neighbourhood because of all the help the government has given him in bringing his dream to fruition.
“The government has helped in so many ways. The Self Starter grant made starting my business much easier and now I‘ve been able to expand my staff and train other youngsters because of the Job Readiness & Training program. Now we have grown to eight full time and four part time staff. There’s no way we could have done that without the government’s job initiative. Striping is an on/off business. With this program we can now afford to use our off days for training and give the staff valuable skills. They are learning much more than they normally would. The program gives them the paid time to learn all kinds of things: administration, inventory control, and maintenance. And we have the time to do charitable work like this!” said Mitchell.
Dr. Sands and Mitchell said they’d like to find other projects in Elizabeth Constituency where Bahamas Striping’s special skills in spray painting could help.
