The Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NAAATT) and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T joined forces to pro­vide sup­port to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mem­ber with ham­pers dur­ing the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic which has af­fect­ed many the nor­mal lives of its mem­bers. The clubs in To­ba­go treat­ed last week.

It was a project to tem­po­rary Re­lief to the mem­ber­ship and it start­ed last week in the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go, where Pen­ny Savers was used as the sup­pli­er for the ham­pers. The dis­tri­b­u­tion will con­tin­ue this week for clubs based in Trinidad.

The Guardian Me­dia Sports spoke to the Pres­i­dent of the NAAATT Ephraim Ser­rette, who ex­plained what the ini­tia­tive is all about he said, "The NAAA has part­nered with the NGC to pro­vide much-need­ed re­lief to fam­i­lies in ath­let­ics who have been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed from the mea­sures in deal­ing with the spread of COVID-19. While the Gov­ern­ment has put sev­er­al so­cial as­sis­tance grants in place to mit­i­gate the fall­out from job loss and fi­nan­cial de­ple­tion, we as a sport­ing body are do­ing our part to help those most af­fect­ed. This ini­tia­tive is the con­tin­ued part­ner­ship be­tween The NGC and our body the NAAA. We have fin­ished in To­ba­go and that went smooth­ly with the ros­ter­ing of clubs to come in and col­lect at spe­cif­ic times. We are in­sist­ing that so­cial dis­tanc­ing which is man­dat­ed is had. There will be one per­son from the clubs who will col­lect on be­half of our clubs and do what is nec­es­sary. With no Cham­pi­onship this year some of the fund­ing which would have used has been utilised in this ini­tia­tive."

Ser­rette con­tin­ued, "In this vein of be­ing our Broth­er’s Keep­er, we are pro­vid­ing food vouch­ers to ath­letes and fam­i­lies in need with­in the ath­let­ic fra­ter­ni­ty through the ma­jor su­per­mar­ket chains with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We re­quest­ed from all 2020 reg­is­tered clubs un­der our re­mit to iden­ti­fy those reg­is­tered ath­letes/coach­es who would need such as­sis­tance. It is be­lieved that this first phase would bring a sense of re­lief to the homes that house these ath­letes, know­ing that some of the ad­di­tion­al bur­den brought on by the un­cer­tain­ty of these time can be re­solved."

There will be no Track and Field Sea­son 2020 in Trinidad and To­ba­go.