Dear Sir,

As a peaceful Bermuda Day holiday weekend ends, I'm reflecting on our country as a whole. Where we started and where we are now. I started thinking about our next relatively new national holiday, Heroes Weekend.

I started to wonder what is it really for? Who does it really honour? Will it be here in another 25 years? Does Heroes Weekend pull our whole island community together and really promote its name? Does it teach or promote our values for the next generation?

This Bermuda Day just gone was so lovely and peaceful, it seems a shame to me that it should be followed by a holiday that slightly lacks knitting our island community tighter together.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Heroes Weekend and promote it to our visitors. I commend the Heroes Weekend founders and committee for working so hard to pull it off year after year. I just wish it lived more up to its name and included everyone.

Other Caribbean countries have carnivals to celebrate their crops being harvested or their emancipation, and we have chosen National Heroes to celebrate. I believe we could improve our Heroes Weekend by highlighting our island’s heroes and making it something that truly brings out the people we were and can continue to be.

A hero by the Oxford Dictionary definition is a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities. So where are they?

Our heroes are everyday people.

They are the lady in the car that witnessed the accident, called 911 and waited with the injured.

He is the schoolboy that always waits to help the senior carry her groceries home.

He is the uncle that cuts his disabled neighbour’s grass without asking for payment.

It is the person who gives information to help keep our streets safe.

It is the person who always offers a smile and kind word to all that they pass.

Our heroes are not just in the non-profit organisations, but walking among us every day keeping the spirit and soul of Bermuda alive.

We need to nominate them. Celebrate them. Encourage more people, in particular the younger generation, to be heroes, too.

My vision of Heroes Weekend enters not just the streets for partying but our schools, our businesses, our homes and our hearts.

It’s not just a weekend but an attitude, heart and soul. It is lived and built upon all year long and explodes once a year in celebration of all the outstanding heroes doing their best to bring courage, nobility and integrity to everyday life here in Bermuda.

Wouldn’t it be more meaningful if every parish had its own heroes committee and nominated its heroes and heroines? If each parish had a float that passed the torch of Heroes Weekend to the next parish and everyone celebrated those heroes throughout the weekend?

In conclusion, Mr Editor, In a time when Bermuda seems to desperately need a renewed sense of community, I wonder who else thinks we could build on Heroes Weekend to make it the fabric of our people and not only a revelry of the road?

ALYSSA STEWART

Pembroke