Michelle Jones is tired of waiting on the Government to clean up St Thomas.

So the 47-year-old former United States Navy sailor bought her own weed whacker and is now spending three days a week cutting overgrown bushes and clearing clogged drains across the parish — all from her own pocket.

“I just want to see St Thomas looking good and I want it to be safe. I want the gutters to be clean and nice and stuff like that. That is my thing,” Jones told Observer Online. “And I am going to continue as long as God gives me breath and I have good health and I can stand up, the weed whacker will be working.”

Jones returned to Jamaica in August 2025 after a family emergency. She found her elderly grandfather living in what she described as deplorable conditions in Montego Bay — faeces on the walls and floor, no light, and dementia untreated. She moved him into rented accommodation and cared for him until his death on April 27, 2026, one month before his 93rd birthday.

After settling his affairs, Jones relocated to St Thomas on May 1 — the parish she left at age 18 because she felt it offered too few opportunities. Back then, she moved to Montego Bay, worked in hotels, call centres, and on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship before migrating to the US at age 34. She started as a nurse aide, then joined the Navy at 39 — the maximum enlistment age for her branch. She served on the USS Kearsarge and USS Harry S Truman, helped fellow service members with immigration issues, and was medically retired with an honourable discharge in December 2023 after injuring her left elbow.

Now back in St Thomas, Jones says the parish has changed. “The peace is on a different level. Peace and quiet and tranquility…I can tell you this, St Thomas is going places,” she said. But driving through the Albion community, she noticed the roads were “deplorable” and bushes were overgrown outside people's yards and on vacant lots. So she bought a whacker and started cutting.

“I said, I am going to get my whacker and I'm going to start cutting. I'm just going to show up in front of people's yard, and anywhere along the roadway, I just cut,” Jones said.

Since then, she has been working under the hot sun three days a week. One of her biggest projects was cleaning an area near the tax office in Morant Bay with the help of two men who said they take care of the property. Her next target: the gutter in front of Yallahs Primary School, which she says is clogged with bushes and could cause flooding during hurricane season.

“August/September, it's going to be hurricane season, even though El Nino will make the place really hot…but there will be a lot of rain, and because of clogged gutters, there is flooding, and I have witnessed young children being swept away by water,” she said.

Jones is calling on others to join her. “If anybody wants to join and help clean, I have whackers,” she said.