The community of Perkins sits just south of Waynesboro and north of the city of Millen off U.S. 25. All of these southeast Georgia towns run small, but Perkins earns the prize.
It lacks a grocery store, City Hall, mayor or council. It has no fast-food joints or nail salons. Online shopping information for the town lists businesses in Waynesboro and elsewhere.
Perkins does have one thing, though: a U.S. post office. And like a dependable neighbor, it has served the community for more than 100 years.
Mind you, the facility is nothing fancy, just a mobile home off Perkins Green Fork Road that sits close to a historic building that once served as the post office.
Still, it’s a post office and, for this rural outpost, it’s the community nerve, the connection to the outside world. If Perkins had a legit downtown, the post office would make up its fabric, along with other historic buildings that dot the area.
Soon, though, a decision will have to be made: Does the Perkins post office stay open or close?
The United States Postal Service is trying to trim billions and make its operation more profitable. To that end, the Perkins facility and other rural mail operations across Georgia are some of the 3,000-plus post offices and distribution centers nationwide under consideration for closure or consolidation.
Recently, the cash-strapped agency announced that it would postpone any action for five months. So Perkins, a community of 500 with one ZIP code (30822), has been granted a reprieve, though some residents want a bigger commitment.
Melissa Gardner, known in postal parlance as the “officer in charge” at the facility because there’s no full-time postmaster, told me higher-ups wouldn’t allow her to speak to the issue. A town hall meeting was held this summer in the Perkins Community House — which lacks air conditioning — when news of a potential shutdown spread through town. There was no misconstruing the message residents sent to representatives for the USPS, which arranged the sit down.
More than 100 residents greeted them, some carrying “Save our post office” signs, according to a report by WRDW-TV of Augusta, the closest big city.
With closure, the USPS officials learned that residents would have to drive eight miles to Millen — my hometown — or 15 miles to Waynesboro to get to the nearest post offices. With 18 percent unemployment ravaging Jenkins County, the occasional trip to retrieve packages would stretch tight budgets.
With closure, Perkins residents would have to rely more on the Internet, something many aren’t accustomed to cruising. Moreover, “We have so many elderly and disabled people,” explained Alice Hopperfarr during the town hall meeting. “I just don’t see how they could close us down.”
In some communities where post offices face closure, the agency has suggested an alternative: a “village post office,” run voluntarily out of an existing business such as a hardware store.
Perkins, though, has no viable businesses to speak of.
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