Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The Sal­va­tion Army host­ed its Christ­mas Food Ham­per Dis­tri­b­u­tion yes­ter­day at its head­quar­ters on Hen­ry Street, Port of Spain, con­tin­u­ing its an­nu­al ef­fort to sup­port fam­i­lies dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od.

The dis­tri­b­u­tion formed part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Christ­mas out­reach pro­gramme, which pro­vides food as­sis­tance to in­di­vid­u­als and house­holds fac­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ship across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ben­e­fi­cia­ries col­lect­ed ham­pers con­tain­ing es­sen­tial food items in­tend­ed to sup­port fam­i­lies dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.

The spe­cial guest at the event was Dr Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al, who at­tend­ed in his ca­pac­i­ty as chief pa­tron of the Sal­va­tion Army.

Dr Coos­al has served in this role for al­most a decade and has been a long-stand­ing sup­port­er of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s so­cial pro­grammes.

“As a fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny, we be­lieve that when our com­mu­ni­ties thrive, our na­tion thrives.

“It is a priv­i­lege for Coos­al’s to con­tin­ue part­ner­ing with or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Sal­va­tion Army and sup­port­ing our schools in mean­ing­ful, last­ing ways. This is the essence of who we are, and it is a lega­cy we re­main com­mit­ted to car­ry­ing for­ward,” he said.

Over many years, the Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies has sup­port­ed the Sal­va­tion Army’s an­nu­al Christ­mas Ket­tle Dri­ve and its food ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme.

This sup­port has con­tributed to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s abil­i­ty to ex­pand its out­reach and meet the needs of fam­i­lies dur­ing pe­ri­ods of in­creased fi­nan­cial pres­sure.

Of­fi­cials of the Sal­va­tion Army said part­ner­ships with cor­po­rate and com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers re­main crit­i­cal to sus­tain­ing its pro­grammes.

They said that con­sis­tent sup­port al­lows the or­gan­i­sa­tion to plan and ex­e­cute its an­nu­al ini­tia­tives with greater reach and ef­fi­cien­cy.

The Christ­mas Food Ham­per Dis­tri­b­u­tion is one of sev­er­al ini­tia­tives con­duct­ed by the Sal­va­tion Army dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son, along­side com­mu­ni­ty meals and out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties, as part of its on­go­ing mis­sion to pro­vide as­sis­tance and sup­port to those in need through­out the coun­try.