13 years and four months have passed since father of the nation George Price died, and in celebration of his legacy and his work ethic, school children across the country undertook service day projects.
Now, to be clear, Service Day is observed on September 19th - on the anniversary of Price's death - but some schools also do it today.
Jomarie Lanza met with some hard working school children today and also stopped in at the Bliss to see the screening of a George Price documentary:
In celebration of his life, and to honor his commitment to service, some secondary schools today organized acts of service within the community to carry on Mr Price's legacy.
For EP York's students, George Price day, also known as service day, falls in line with the school's 55th anniversary.
To commemorate this, a third form teacher along with her students picked up trash along the seaside this morning. She spoke about the importance of civic pride.
Nicole Palacio, Teacher, EP York High school
"One of our goals or objectives apart from learning academics we try to instill in our students that there is value to giving back to your community and right now today we are out in our community, well this is an extended part of our community where we came out and we want to encourage our students that we should keep our city clean we should learn to give back and as our school represents giving back to people who are from marginalized backgrounds we take that very seriously and we encourage our students to live by example."
Jamielee Stuart, Student
"I think it is important to give back to the community because Belize is a very beautiful place and we need to keep it clean because a lot of tourists come here so we need to have a presentable environment for them to come into."
Aljay Adolphus, Student
"So I think civic pride is important because as you can see Many of the main streets in Belize are always dirty and tourism is a big part of Belize's income and when they come here and see the dirty place that discourages them so we try to keep the place clean to attract more tourists and that boosts the economy income for Belize."
And while some may choose to perform acts of service, others may take some time to reflect on Price's accomplishments. The Institute of Creative Arts hosted a screening session for school children on a 4 part mini documentary series called The Lessons From The Father Of The Nation. Children were asked to come in and write down reflections on Price's life.
Kim Vasquez, Director of the Institute of Creative Arts
"They are looking at leadership themes they are looking at certain qualities that the right honorable George Price Embodied specifically humility service faith and encouragement and what we are doing today with the secondary students is we had a overview of that film making process so that was one part of it and the second part is the screening accompanied by a journaling exercise on those four themes that I just mentioned and so they are being asked to reflect on what they are seeing. The stories that are being told these documentaries are being put together by conducting a series of interviews with people that knew the father of the nation personally in his personal life so it's really an intimate look at him and you're hearing from them first hand stories that are put together to make this serried and so they are being asked to reflect and to write their thoughts as they are watching the series unfold on screen."
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