In the voice of the late Bill With­ers—“We all need some­body to lean on.”

These words could not be truer par­tic­u­lar­ly at this time in the world where so many peo­ple and fam­i­lies lives have been tossed up­side down by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Many homes have lost in­come be­cause of the many nec­es­sary mea­sures tak­en by coun­tries to curb the spread of the virus, some be­ing the shut­down of busi­ness­es and Stay-At home or­ders and even in some in­stances state of emer­gen­cies.

It is with this re­al­i­ty; many non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) across the globe have put their shoul­ders to the wheel, work­ing night and day to get food, clothes and all oth­er ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties to fam­i­lies.

In T&T, sev­er­al NGOs have stepped up en­gag­ing in pan­dem­ic re­lief ef­forts. Among them is the Foun­da­tion for the En­hance­ment and En­rich­ment of Life (FEEL), the um­brel­la NGO for all NGOs reg­is­tered with it.

Ear­ly on, fol­low­ing shut­down mea­sures, FEEL be­gan dis­trib­ut­ing care pack­ages and gro­cery items to fam­i­lies in need all over T&T. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er NGOs, it has man­aged to dis­trib­ute 8,000 food ham­pers to bring food sup­port to homes for the el­der­ly, in­sti­tu­tions car­ing for the so­cial­ly dis­placed and chil­dren’s res­i­dences.

FEEL has al­so pro­vid­ed food items in bulk to the var­i­ous NGOs reg­is­tered with its or­gan­i­sa­tion so that these NGOs can do their dis­tri­b­u­tions in their re­spec­tive lo­ca­tions.

Any­one wish­ing to col­lab­o­rate or con­tribute to FEEL’s Sup­port A House­hold Af­fect­ed by COVID-19 ini­tia­tive, or to see a list­ing of its as­so­ci­at­ed NGOs, can vis­it its Face­book Page at FeelTandT or send emails to feel­trinidadand­to­ba­go@gmail.com

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with some in­de­pen­dent NGOs, which shared how cit­i­zens could as­sist them in the con­tin­u­a­tion of their pan­dem­ic re­lief ef­forts.

Faith Fight Foun­da­tion (FFF), a faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tion from Ari­ma found­ed by Can­dice Pierre-Sook­lal and hus­band God­win Sook­lal, have been in­volved in char­i­ty work over the years, bring­ing re­lief to flood vic­tims and per­sons gen­er­al­ly in need. It has been in­volved in pan­dem­ic re­lief ef­forts since the virus forced clo­sure of many work­places and in­sti­tu­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via Face­book, Pierre-Sook­lal said if any cit­i­zen want­ed to join FFF in its re­lief ef­forts to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing fam­i­lies, the or­gan­i­sa­tion can be con­tact­ed via num­bers 498-9784 or 480-1242. She said the or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so had drop off lo­ca­tions at San­gre Grande, Curepe and Cou­va.

The Sin­gle Moth­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SMATT) is ask­ing for cit­i­zens to as­sist them in sup­ply­ing ba­sic food items to sin­gle-par­ent homes. Founder Sher­maine Howe told Guardian Me­dia, they al­so need­ed as­sis­tance in do­nat­ing ap­pli­ances, such as re­frig­er­a­tors and stoves for some of these fam­i­lies. She said the NGO was al­so as­sist­ing sin­gle moth­ers who have been faced with evic­tions, so the or­gan­i­sa­tion was al­so ac­cept­ing mon­e­tary con­tri­bu­tions to aid these fam­i­lies. SMATT can be reached via email: sher­maine­howe@gmail.com or per­sons can vis­it it’s Face­book page @ SMATT.

Is There Not A Cause (ITNAC), is no stranger to re­lief ef­forts of any kind once the need is there. The be­yond-a-decade-old NGO has done count­less char­i­ta­ble work over the years at both na­tion­al and in­di­vid­ual lev­els. It’s back at it bring­ing re­lief to homes af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Founder Avonelle Hec­tor-Joseph said it was ac­cept­ing toi­letries, ba­by sup­plies, per­ish­able and non-per­ish­able items, cooked meals and baked goods, from any cit­i­zen want­i­ng to help ITNAC suc­cess­ful­ly con­tin­ue to car­ry out re­lief ef­forts to fam­i­lies great­ly in need. The St James-based NGO can be reached via the mo­bile con­tact 394-2042. And fi­nan­cial do­na­tions can al­so be made to First Cit­i­zen’s Bank (FCB) through ac­count num­ber 1660410or Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed (RBL), us­ing ac­count num­ber—510009446801.

South-based NGO— Kind­ness Makes a Dif­fer­ence, needs the sup­port from cit­i­zens of any­one want­i­ng to help needy fam­i­lies at this time, dis­tressed by the pan­dem­ic. Kavi­ta Rag­bir, the founder, said do­na­tions can be made in the form of dry goods, ba­by items in­clu­sive of milk and ce­re­als, wa­ter, and all ba­sic food items.

She said they were al­so ask­ing per­sons to make do­na­tions of chil­dren’s cloth­ing as its or­gan­i­sa­tion was al­so deal­ing with fam­i­lies with chil­dren. The NGO can be reached via mo­bile con­tact num­ber 334-5454.

The La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port group (LARMS) an NGO which deals specif­i­cal­ly with mi­grants in T&T said it wel­comes the sup­port of cit­i­zens to as­sist its NGO in its con­tin­ued pan­dem­ic re­lief ef­forts with this group. They have asked for food do­na­tions such as corn flour, black-eyed beans, pas­ta, toi­letries, cold stor­age foods, pow­dered milk and can foods. Di­rec­tor of the NGO Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine can be con­tact­ed on 687-8072.

Ash­mead Ali of the ASH-NAD Foun­da­tion, tells Guardian Me­dia he is en­cour­ag­ing per­sons to help how­ev­er they can, as there were fam­i­lies in the coun­try hit hard by the pan­dem­ic. His or­gan­i­sa­tion has been bring­ing re­lief to fam­i­lies in need since the pan­dem­ic hit. Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the or­gan­i­sa­tion can call 680-0130 or 221-7661.

The Liv­ing Wa­ters Com­mu­ni­ty who has been in­volved in char­i­ta­ble re­li­gious work for near over four decades, as­sist­ing with the poor, el­der­ly, chil­dren and fam­i­lies, have al­so ded­i­cat­ed its sup­port dur­ing this pan­dem­ic. In a tele­phone in­ter­view with founder Rhon­da Main­got, she said the char­i­ta­ble in­sti­tu­tion was ac­cept­ing drop-offs to its Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain lo­ca­tion on Tues­day, Thurs­day and Sat­ur­day morn­ings.

She any kind of food­stuff was wel­comed, once non-per­ish­able. Liv­ing Wa­ters Com­mu­ni­ty can be con­tact­ed via 623-4677 or 235-5510. Per­sons can al­so vis­it its web­site at www.lw­ctt.org, to find out how they could make mon­e­tary do­na­tions.