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Monica Bodden reporting
Recognizing and appreciating the importance of giving back to the elderly - That was what Mayor Darrell Bradley told us this morning's event was all about.

Despite the heat, the senior citizens from the Sister Cecilia's Home sat under a huge tent out at the BTL Park this morning to enjoy a well-planned out event.

It included dancing, board games, slow walk race, kite flying and much more.

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"We are partnering with Sister Cecilia's Home, they had written us a letter last year when we had marked our one year anniversary in office, we went to Sister Cecelia's Home and we had a luncheon, we spent some time fellowshipping with aged and it was a good experience and so this year coming on to our 2 years in office we decided to do something similar and so we were very happy that they had written us again and we are partnering with them and we decided what better way to do it and it was really the organizers from Sister Cecilia who had the idea to say well BTL Park was renovated and why not bring the residence of Sister Cecilia Home out to BTL Park for a morning of music, food and enjoyment and fellowship - that's what we are doing this morning. We have several volunteers from the City Council including several councilors and our staff, we have people from EP Yorke who volunteered to spend time with the aged and of course we have Sister Cecilia's Home staff members who are out here. They really put everything together and we were very happy to partnered with them and the fellowship and the spirit is very good and I think one of the things about a society is you asses the benefit of a society in how they deal with their most vulnerable and I think we tend to focus a lot on the young people but we ignore the older people."

"This was a very good activity for us to try to see if we could respect the older persons and show them some dignity that they could come out and they could enjoy public spaces in Belize City."

And the old idiom, wisdom comes with age, was proven today - when the Mayor got some good advice from the elderly about managing the city and the media.

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I am finding a lot experiences that they have a lot of wisdom; I've been getting a lot of good advice on how to run the city and how to deal with members of the media. One of the things I found out is because they are in the open area at Sister Cecilia's they tend to watch the news a lot and so they are very aware of what's going on in the city and the country. One of the persons I met last year and he is here again who had work for City Council for 20 years - we are several people here who have been in the public service, so they have a lot of good experience, a lot of good insights and a lot of good advice in relation on how to be a more effective public officer."

The event lasted until a little after midday. The senior citizens were fed and then transported back to their home.