In the af­ter­math of the dev­as­tat­ing floods in parts of our coun­try, or­di­nary cit­i­zens, with­out be­ing told what to do by those in au­thor­i­ty, col­lab­o­rat­ed in a re­mark­able team ef­fort to try and bring some lev­el of re­lief to those af­fect­ed. Mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy and so­cial me­dia made it pos­si­ble for in­di­vid­u­als and groups to self-or­gan­ise with­out need­ing in­struc­tions from some sort of cen­tral con­trol. The strand­ed, res­cuers, those in shel­ters and or­gan­is­ers were us­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms to keep in touch with each oth­er. What has been ob­vi­ous is how the tra­di­tion­al T&T “can-do” spir­it took over de­spite be­ing in a time where our so­ci­ety seemed to have been tak­en over by an en­vi­ron­ment that has been re­lent­less­ly and ap­par­ent­ly pur­pose­ly neg­a­tive al­most as if de­signed to di­vide and de­mor­alise us. The nat­ur­al events of the past week have re­mind­ed me that the force of Moth­er Na­ture is ab­solute and even with all the con­ve­niences of mod­ern life, the im­pact can be dev­as­tat­ing. I am heart­ened to see how peo­ple have been com­ing to­geth­er to sup­port each oth­er dur­ing this cri­sis.

It of­ten takes a tragedy to gain true per­spec­tive. Den­nis Lawrence led the charge on the week­end to bring to­geth­er a group of pow­er­ful, self­less in­di­vid­u­als who have served sport in the coun­try, to find some means of gath­er­ing all the sup­port pos­si­ble to as­sist the flood vic­tims. Let’s be bru­tal­ly hon­est here, I for one, and I am sure some of you out there, com­ing from the en­vi­ron­ment here in T&T in re­cent his­to­ry, have had times when per­son­al­ly it felt that re­al good­ness is noth­ing but a mere façade, a mask be­hind which op­por­tunist souls are plot­ting to pound on you. But fol­low­ing a mere five days of putting minds and hearts to­geth­er and the stag­ing of “Foot­ball for a Cause” on Fri­day night, I have re­newed hope. While as a na­tion we may be em­broiled in all kinds of neg­a­tiv­i­ty, re­cov­ery from which seems an oner­ous task, that does not ne­ces­si­tate that there is a dearth of God-fear­ing, hum­ble souls in the land of the pure. There are still peo­ple out there who are ren­der­ing vol­un­teer ser­vices, mak­ing it a point to serve hu­man­i­ty, charg­ing noth­ing in re­turn.

To the count­less cit­i­zens who turned up at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo just to drop off re­lief items be­fore go­ing about the rest of their evening’s sched­ule, we ex­tend a heart­felt thank you. And to those who re­mained with us to wit­ness the foot­ball match filled with spir­it, ca­ma­raderie and love, you have demon­strat­ed where your heart is. All the play­ers from the Strike Squad era, the 2006 World Cup squad mem­bers and the ath­letes from the var­i­ous sport­ing dis­ci­plines who walked out on­to the pitch to form the love cir­cle be­fore kick off, you all were sim­ply be­ing hu­man in the best pos­si­ble way—by com­ing to­geth­er for a no­ble cause to try and im­prove the cur­rent state of af­fairs for so many we may not even know in our coun­try.

"I think we all came to­geth­er for a greater cause. The con­tri­bu­tions made tonight are all for the flood vic­tims and I think we scored a vic­to­ry tonight as one peo­ple com­ing to­geth­er for such an event. This was us giv­ing back to the peo­ple af­fect­ed who have been there sup­port­ing us ath­letes over the years," Lawrence said.

It was spe­cial to see 1989 Strike squad team­mates such as Rus­sell Lat­apy, Hut­son Charles, Leon­son Lewis, Ker­ry Jamer­son, Michael Mau­rice, Floyd Lawrence and Mar­vin Faustin on the pitch to­geth­er again. Then the likes of Lawrence, Brent San­cho, Stern John, Ken­wyne Jones, Cyd Gray An­tho­ny Wolfe and Clay­ton Ince from the '06 squad, not to for­get Arnold Dwari­ka, An­gus Eve, An­sil El­cock, Clint Mar­celle, Gary Glas­gow and John who at one point were putting on a dis­play in the fi­nal pe­ri­od so rem­i­nis­cent of when they played to­geth­er more than a decade ago.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith's cameo was en­cour­ag­ing and well re­ceived by the fans while the likes of na­tion­al bas­ket­baller Jef­frey Har­ris, crick­eters Kevon Coop­er and Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, for­mer goal­keep­er Ross Rus­sell, na­tion­al in­door hock­ey cap­tain Solomon Ec­cles and team­mates, Rug­by play­er As­san Lewis, women foot­ballers led by Tasha St Louis, Women's crick­eter Staci-Ann King, Net­baller Sue-ann Cord­ner and a host of oth­ers all put on an en­joy­able show. De­Fos­to, Anslem Dou­glas, Isas­ha, Pred­dy, Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion and Max­imus Dan and Ul­ti­mate Re­jects all kept the evening abuzz with en­ter­tain­ment while the many vol­un­teers and ser­vice providers en­sured the pro­ceed­ings flowed. To cor­po­rate T&T who joined us at late no­tice and the many mem­bers of the lo­cal me­dia, your gen­eros­i­ty and con­sis­tent sup­port were had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact.

This char­i­ta­ble event could now be­come an an­nu­al one with the pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tives of an an­nu­al cam­paign be­ing to ac­quire, re­new and up­grade donors, con­tin­ue rais­ing aware­ness and cul­ti­va­tion. There are al­ways peo­ple in need more than we can pos­si­bly imag­ine.

There is a long road to re­cov­ery ahead, but I am in­spired by the heart, com­pas­sion, and grit dis­played by all us I am con­fi­dent that we can be­come stronger than we were be­fore. It needs to be du­ly re­alised that a pro­jec­tion of such hum­ble so­cial en­deav­ours such as Fri­day’s match host­ed by Den­nis and Friends needs to be ren­dered for they are the pos­i­tive shades that or­na­ment the face of Trinidad and To­ba­go, man­i­fest­ing the preva­lence of hu­man­i­ty in the hearts and minds of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Ed­i­tor's Note:

Shaun Fuentes is a for­mer FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa. He is al­so cur­rent­ly a CON­CA­CAF Com­pe­ti­tions Me­dia Of­fi­cer and has trav­eled ex­ten­sive­ly be­cause of sport and me­dia over the past eigh­teen years. He is al­so a cer­ti­fied me­dia train­er for ath­letes.