Football For a Cause...Greenvale residents get Christmas gifts

Na­tion­al Team head coach Den­nis Lawrence whose brain­child it was to stage the “Foot­ball for a Cause” match was joined by mem­bers as they made a sec­ond round of vis­its to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies. Among the items al­so pre­sent­ed were re­frig­er­a­tors, stoves and beds.

One res­i­dent, wheel­chair-bound grand­moth­er An­nette Git­tens, ex­pressed her ela­tion up­on the ar­rival of the group on Sat­ur­day.

“Right now I am so elat­ed. I am hum­bled and I thank you all so much be­cause I got more than I ex­pect­ed. I know God is awe­some and I know that he al­ways gives. So when I got the call from Den­nis I said ‘what?’ and then I un­der­stood about Foot­ball for a Cause. Den­nis and Friends, you all have made my day and I thank you so much,” Git­tens said.

Re­call­ing the or­deal in Oc­to­ber, she added, “That was a jour­ney. At first, I thought what I am go­ing to do. Where I am go­ing to get the things from. We did get a $20,000 grant from the Gov­ern­ment and while it may not be enough, I still thanked God for it. But we need­ed a lot of stuff still. And then when you all called, I said ‘Lord I got all that I am pray­ing for’. I didn’t have a fridge, I didn’t have a stove and now I do. I didn’t have that much hope but I have faith in God.”

Git­ten’s grand­daugh­ter Shayanne has been at her side and was al­so grate­ful for the sup­port. “I’d nev­er been through any­thing like that so it was re­al­ly tir­ing and dif­fi­cult. That was the most fright­en­ing night of my life. We didn’t know what our next step would be. There were a lot of sleep­less nights and days be­cause we were not sure what to­mor­row would bring. But now we are com­ing along and we will hope­ful­ly get there.”

Git­tens is look­ing for­ward to a brighter hol­i­day than she would have an­tic­i­pat­ed a week ago. Among oth­er res­i­dents vis­it­ed on Sat­ur­day in­clud­ed Dwight Roach who is still un­able to move back in­to his home for the Christ­mas. Roach's ini­tial plea for as­sis­tance got the at­ten­tion of Lawrence who then ini­ti­at­ed pro­ceed­ings for the foot­ball event.

“Christ­mas is look­ing much bet­ter, I love to cook even though I am on a wheel­chair. I am a bad granny in the kitchen. Now I can bake my sweet­bread and I can drink cold juice. I am not ashamed to say I was drink­ing hot juice be­fore. The on­ly thing I told them I re­al­ly need­ed at first was an iron be­cause I need to iron my clothes to look pre­sentable. Thank you so much to Foot­ball for a Cause, Den­nis and Friends like Richard (Piper) and Na­dine (Khan), you all have re­al­ly come for­ward and done a great deal for us.”

Through the use of cash col­lect­ed from the event, ap­pli­ances were pur­chased and dis­trib­uted to homes in the af­fect­ed ar­eas. The or­gan­is­ers of Foot­ball For a Cause dis­trib­uted in sev­er­al of the af­fect­ed ar­eas in­clud­ing Green­vale, Con­go, San­gre Grande, As­cot, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Cou­va, Las Lo­mas, War­renville, Orop­une, El So­cor­ro and To­ba­go.

Foot­ball For a Cause wish­es to ex­tend its ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the fol­low­ing part­ners - Carib, NL­CB, Health­net Caribbean, De­fence Force Mas­ters, SM Jaleel, An­gos­tu­ra, Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed, 96.1 and Star 94.7 FM (TTRN), I95.5FM and Red 96.7, 107.1FM, WACK 901.1,Boom Cham­pi­ons 94.1, Flow Trinidad, Caribbean Lifestyle Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, TTFA, Sports and Games, Lounge 63, Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, Sportt, Jo­ma, Domi­no’s, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice, Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, The Me­dia, All Play­ers, Sup­port Staff and Vol­un­teers.

SOURCE: T&T Guardian