Brooklyn pays tribute to Vincentian teacher and community leader Jackson Farrell
Farrell, who led the St Vincent and the Grenadines Ex-Teachers Association of New York for more than 30 years, died in his homeland on June 20, aged 73.
NEW YORK, United States. Brooklyn’s Vincentian community on Friday, July 10, paid tribute to Jackson Farrell, a longtime teacher and community activist who died in his native St Vincent and the Grenadines on June 20. He was 73.
Farrell, a retired Brooklyn public school teacher, served as president of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Ex-Teachers Association of New York for more than 30 years.
Former teachers, community advocates and representatives of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) attended a memorial service at Bethany United Methodist Church in Crown Heights, officiated by the Grenadian-born Rev Wesley Daniel.
‘A leader and an educator’
“He was a leader and an educator,” said Hermina Claxton, who succeeded Farrell as the association’s president. “He was also kind, generous, outgoing, friendly and smart.”
Claxton said Farrell was a former vice-president of the Council of St Vincent and the Grenadines Organisations (COSAGO), the umbrella Vincentian body in the US, and a UFT delegate for District 32. “He encouraged groups and organisations to be united; for, in so doing, they will become stronger,” she said.
Venda Smith Cyrus, the association’s vice-president, recalled that Farrell called members on their birthdays and reminded them of meetings. “Jackie was passionate about his beloved St Vincent and the Grenadines,” she said. “He loved the country where he spent his formative years, and where he drew his last breath.”
Former COSAGO president Laverne McDowald-Thompson said members re-elected him time after time. “Allow me to say that he was president for life,” she said.
Service to students
UFT member Karen Alford said Farrell devoted more than 30 years to students in Bushwick. “Our public school system is better off because of Jackson Farrell,” she said.
Dr Herman Ambris, a trustee of the association and Farrell’s schoolmate at St Vincent Grammar School, recited a poem in his memory. Rev Daniel, who served with Farrell as a youth leader in the Methodist Church in the Southern Caribbean, said he spent his life spreading love and “holding us together.”
Farrell’s partner, Jacqueline McKenzie, said he “trusted in God wholeheartedly.” “His work is done, his course is run, and he now rests with the ancestors,” she said.
