Some 80 pen­sion­ers from Beetham Gar­dens were treat­ed to an end-of-year lun­cheon by the TTPS yes­ter­day.

The group was hand-se­lect­ed by of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Com­mu­ni­ty Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion, as part of its last out­reach ef­fort be­fore 2024 end­ed.

The men and women were picked up from their homes, which spanned across Beetham Gar­dens (Phas­es 1 to 5), as well as the Pen­sion­ers’ Quar­ters, and tak­en to the Beetham Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre for 1.30 pm.

Speak­ing about the ini­tia­tive, which forms part of the soft­er polic­ing ap­proach be­ing em­ployed to re­con­nect with com­mu­ni­ty el­ders, Sgt Giselle Thomas said the event was held to, “ho­n­our, cel­e­brate and ap­pre­ci­ate the el­der­ly with­in the Beetham com­mu­ni­ty.”

“They would have con­tributed so much to the com­mu­ni­ty and they will be leav­ing a lega­cy, and we just want to ap­pre­ci­ate them and show them love to­day by host­ing this lun­cheon,” Thomas said.

The meal, which con­sist­ed of Christ­mas rice, corn pie, mac­a­roni sal­ad, pi­geon peas and BBQ chick­en; and ice cream for dessert, was pre­pared by po­lice of­fi­cers from with­in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, who vol­un­teered their time to cook.

The at­ten­dees were al­so ser­e­nad­ed as they were be­ing served buf­fet-style by of­fi­cers.

Smil­ing broad­ly, Cpl Nicole Castil­lo, who al­so serves in the Port-of-Spain Com­mu­ni­ty Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion, said, “One of the things we strive on is part­ner­ship and build­ing re­la­tion­ships with the pub­lic.”

Say­ing they de­cid­ed up­on the idea of a lun­cheon as one of the bridge-build­ing mea­sures to reach the com­mu­ni­ty af­ter speak­ing with the vil­lage coun­cil, Castil­lo said pre­vi­ous ini­tia­tives had seen them dis­trib­ut­ing food ham­pers, host­ing cloth­ing dri­ves and back-to-school ex­er­cis­es through the past year.

Both of­fi­cers con­firmed they had been see­ing “fruit­ful feed­back” from their out­reach ef­forts, as many of the youths in the com­mu­ni­ty wel­comed the men­tor­ing ses­sions, whilst their par­ents had been avail­ing them­selves of the parental work­shops. In fact, they said this was one area they would be pay­ing in­creased at­ten­tion to in the new year.

Thomas said, “We want to build back the trust and con­fi­dence in the Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Asked which area re­quired more at­ten­tion, the of­fi­cers ad­mit­ted it was East Port-of-Spain.

Lawrence Clarke, 83, who has been liv­ing in Beetham Gar­dens for more than 40 years, wel­comed the ini­tia­tive.

“They are show­ing the old­er peo­ple that they still care about them and that is very good,” he said.

Re­new­ing a call for a mo­bile po­lice post to be set up in the Beetham Gar­dens area, Clarke said since the last one lo­cat­ed at low­er Pash­ley Street was re­moved, crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty had in­creased some­what, and he want­ed to see this de­cline once again.