Dar­ren Ram­per­sad

Ko­riel­la Es­pinoza has been de­clared the first ever An­gos­tu­ra Cham­pi­on at an awards cer­e­mo­ny which was held at the House of An­gos­tu­ra, East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille, on De­cem­ber 7.

The House of An­gos­tu­ra an­nounced five fi­nal­ists for its in­au­gur­al An­gos­tu­ra Cham­pi­ons Award for Com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice—Christo­pher Den­nis, El­speth Dun­can, Don­ald McLean James, Frank Ed­wards, and Ko­riel­la Es­pinoza.

Launched this year, An­gos­tu­ra Cham­pi­ons is an an­nu­al awards pro­gramme ini­ti­at­ed by the com­pa­ny to cel­e­brate in­di­vid­u­als who per­form out­stand­ing com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and work to­ward im­prov­ing the lives of oth­ers in T&T. The awards pro­gramme aims to show­case the cho­sen cham­pi­on's ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety thus en­cour­ag­ing a sense of ser­vice.

This year's win­ner Ko­riel­la Es­pinoza is the founder of Ko­rie's Kids, an or­gan­i­sa­tion which sup­ports and em­pow­ers chil­dren di­ag­nosed with can­cer and their fam­i­lies.

Christo­pher Den­nis, who has been op­er­at­ing a youth coach­ing pro­gramme called Fool's Can't Surf for over sev­en years, has been mo­ti­vat­ing young peo­ple in Ba­lan­dra and the sur­round­ing ar­eas through sport.

El­speth Dun­can is a ded­i­cat­ed an­i­mal res­cuer and an­i­mal wel­fare ac­tivist who is ac­tive in To­ba­go.

Don­ald McLean James is the founder of the Pro­fes­sion­al Bar­ber­ing School which men­tors young peo­ple and pro­vides free hair­cuts for those in need.

Frank Ed­wards is the founder and man­ag­er of the Mor­vant Foot­ball Acad­e­my which has built ca­ma­raderie among young peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty for over a decade.

An­gos­tu­ra award­ed all fi­nal­ists with $10,000 fund­ing to­wards their com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. The over­all win­ner, Es­pinoza re­ceived an ad­di­tion­al $40,000.