The T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety Chil­dren's Car­ni­val was suc­cess­ful­ly staged this year with half of the $755,000 bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for 2019 and more band reg­is­tra­tions.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing the pa­rade of the bands in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sat­ur­day, T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Jill De Bourg said "This year our pro­ject­ed bud­get was $350,000, half of what we did last year. We had to spend a lot on fund­ing, sup­port, ad­ver­tis­ing, stake­hold­er and re­la­tion­ship build­ing last year. Be­cause some of the ini­tial in­vest­ments were es­tab­lished we did not have to spend as much this, how­ev­er, we en­cour­age a lot of in-kind spon­sor­ship as well."

She said the Min­istry of Cul­ture was one of the spon­sors who al­ways came on board and con­tributed with a grant that was al­lowed for cul­tur­al events such as this.

De Bourg said what the so­ci­ety did to en­cour­age spon­sors to come on board was to en­sure that the prod­uct and re­ward they gave band­lead­ers and in­di­vid­u­als were worth the in­vest­ment of time and tal­ent.

She said she would not say that there was a full buy-in yet, but the so­ci­ety re­ceived a healthy buy-in re­gard­ing an in­crease in reg­is­tra­tion from about 273 in 2019 to over 300 this year and there was still room to grow.

Heavy ro­ta­tion for some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans

It may be too ear­ly to gauge who the Road March win­ner will be, how­ev­er Lyrikal's Ruk­shun, Iw­er and Kes' Stage Gone Bad, Prob­lem Child's Nasty Up and Machel Mon­tano, Iw­er George and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous' Conch Shell re­ceived heavy ro­ta­tion at the T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety Chil­dren's Car­ni­val—"For The Love Of Chil­dren" at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The event which is in its 64th year start­ed at 11:45 am, a lit­tle lat­er than its ad­ver­tised 11 am, from the cutest babes in arms lit­er­al­ly to teenagers brim­ming with en­er­gy took to the stage un­der a sub­dued sun but their danc­ing was pure joy to be­hold as their colour­ful cos­tumes daz­zled in the sun­light.

A cool breeze helped the young mas­quer­aders cross the stage in de­light to the pump­ing so­ca mu­sic. In­di­vid­u­als and bands stretched in­to the dis­tance wait­ing pa­tient­ly to "break away" on the stage.

While it was main­ly "pret­ty mas," there were many por­tray­als with a strong mes­sage about pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment and re­cy­cling, that had their own cat­e­go­ry called Cli­mate Change. Sari­ah Thomas' cos­tume "Dress To Kill" was made with re­cy­cled ma­te­r­i­al.

It was a kid­dies Car­ni­val of in­clu­sion, Small band Pros­pe­rUs Kids "Is­land Glo­ry" had a child in a wheel­chair who was hav­ing the time of his life danc­ing in his wheel­chair as he was wheeled around by an adult on stage.

Small Band Rose­mary Perkins "Love the Beach" brought jel­ly­fish and oth­er sea crea­tures to life in front of the ap­pre­cia­tive crowd.

One of the largest cat­e­gories was the girls 6-9 years where Ne­tanya Phillip's strik­ing pur­ple and black "Cre­ation of the Pitch Lake" took first place. She as well as many of the oth­er ju­nior mas­quer­aders will make a seam­less tran­si­tion to "big mas" as they danced their cos­tumes like vet­er­ans and could "feel" the pul­sat­ing mu­sic.

There was a re­as­sur­ing po­lice pres­ence at the event with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith at the fore with po­lice in tac­ti­cal cam­ou­flage uni­forms and equip­ment.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said "It was, as al­ways beau­ti­ful­ly cre­ative. They rep­re­sent the purest and high­est form of mas; the por­tray­al of, the street the­atre. Their ex­u­ber­ance is matched on­ly by the in­no­va­tion dis­played in their cos­tum­ing."

The pa­tron of the event Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes was al­so in at­ten­dance.