IRONDALE — Mayor James D. Stewart Jr. presented four $1000 checks to winners of the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Public Service Contest during the first monthly meeting of the Irondale City Council on Tuesday night, February 6. The four winners submitted plans for service projects in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service. The holiday is the only national holiday designated as a day of service.
“We had four winners out of about 16 or 17 applications to be able to submit projects for the Martin Luther King Service Day,” Stewart said. “Instead of having a breakfast here, we decided we would try to do something that Martin Luther King would be proud of and that’s providing a service project to the community.”
The four winning proposals were present to be honored during the meeting. Claude Perry won for Operation Community Grass Grooming to cut grass for seniors. Lt. David Brasher won for his proposal Fire Safety Solutions for Citizens with Disabilities. Marsha Kelly Sutton & Lt. David Brasher for “Reality Check,” a financial literacy program for students at Irondale Middle School. Adrienne London also won for the Sowing Good Seeds youth mentoring program.
Stewart then presented a $1000 check to Irondale Community School in recognition of a special project proposed by Teacher of the Year, Valerie Agee.
Agee proposed a project to create a special store to be used as a rewards system for students who show positive behaviors related to the key character traits of compassion, mindset, inspiration, purpose, and integrity.
“We have a system called ‘houses.’ Each house represents a characteristic that we want the kids to have,” said Agee. “Red house is compassion. Black house is integrity. Blue house is inspiration. Green house is purpose. Gold house is positive mindset,” she explained.
The house system is designed to build community within the school. Students earn credits or tokens by exhibiting these traits and can spend their tokens in the store. Agee will use the check to stock the store with items for the program.
In other business, the Council approved the purchase of approximately 23 acres of real estate along the Cahaba River at 6299 Highway 78 East for a price of $100,000. The land is expected to be rezoned away from light industrial to preserve the integrity of the river. The resolution passed 2-1 with Councilmember Cuellar opposed. Members London and Sims were absent.
The Council approved a resolution to move the first meeting in March to Thursday March 7 due to primary elections scheduled for Tuesday March 5. The Council usually meets the first and third Tuesday of each month.
The next meeting of the Irondale City Council will be held at 6 p.m. on February 20 at Irondale City Hall. An agenda for the meeting can be found on the Irondale website prior to the meeting.