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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Mother’s life of giving inspires charitable foundation

by

14 days ago
20250626

The Lynette Ram­per­sad Give A Lit­tle, Help A Lot Foun­da­tion (LRF) wants to ex­pand its reach by for­mal­is­ing its pro­grammes and deep­en­ing its ad­vo­ca­cy in the ar­eas of can­cer care and ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­cess.

Found­ed in 2007 and for­mal­ly reg­is­tered as a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion in 2011, the LRF was es­tab­lished in mem­o­ry of for­mer Tabaquite RC School prin­ci­pal Lynette Ram­per­sad.

Ram­per­sad, who was di­ag­nosed with can­cer in 2004, was a staunch Ro­man Catholic who lived the the­o­log­i­cal virtue of char­i­ty taught by the church. She was well known in her Tabaquite com­mu­ni­ty for her gen­eros­i­ty.

Her di­ag­no­sis changed the lives of her hus­band Ken­neth and chil­dren Kathy, Kirk and Ker­ry, who ex­pe­ri­enced first­hand the fi­nan­cial, emo­tion­al, and psy­cho­log­i­cal toll of the dis­ease.

The Ram­per­sad fam­i­ly turned their pain in­to pur­pose, ini­ti­at­ing a move­ment which is now in its 17th year.

“Our moth­er’s jour­ney opened our eyes to just how over­whelm­ing life be­comes for fam­i­lies deal­ing with ill­ness,” said LRF di­rec­tor Ker­ry Ram­per­sad.

“We want­ed to ho­n­our her lega­cy by help­ing oth­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar strug­gles, es­pe­cial­ly when no one else would.”

What start­ed as a per­son­al trib­ute by a griev­ing fam­i­ly has evolved in­to a self-fund­ed pow­er­house of grass­roots giv­ing, im­pact­ing the lives of hun­dreds of cit­i­zens; es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren, who are grap­pling with ill­ness, fi­nan­cial hard­ship and dis­as­ter.

The foun­da­tion has since dis­trib­uted ap­prox­i­mate­ly $400,000 to those in need.

Ben­e­fi­cia­ries have in­clud­ed Ba­by Han­nah, who need­ed cor­rec­tive surgery; Cait­lyn Paige In­nis, whose surgery abroad was made pos­si­ble with funds raised from a char­i­ty crick­et match; and the Hunt fam­i­ly, pro­vid­ed with hous­ing.

In ad­di­tion, ten stu­dents were pro­vid­ed with lap­tops to make their on­line school­ing pos­si­ble at the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

There are dozens more: flood vic­tims in Bras­so, chil­dren at the Hope Cen­tre and pa­tients bat­tling can­cer and kid­ney fail­ure who were oth­er­wise out of op­tions.

The aim is to build mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tions and part­ner­ships that can sus­tain their im­pact for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“Our moth­er be­lieved in help­ing with­out hes­i­ta­tion,” said Ker­ry Ram­per­sad.

“It was nev­er about recog­ni­tion, it was about do­ing what was right when it mat­tered most.

“To­day, we’re com­mit­ted to car­ry­ing that lega­cy to the next lev­el. But to tru­ly ex­pand our im­pact, we need the sup­port of those who share that same spir­it of giv­ing, a be­lief that giv­ing a lit­tle to help a lot, as the small­est act of kind­ness can cre­ate a rip­ple of hope.”

Un­like many char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions, the LRF is most­ly self-fund­ed. Its di­rec­tors, along with kind­heart­ed, ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers, have sus­tained the work through grass­roots ini­tia­tives: Car­ni­val par­ties, cake and break­fast sales, do­na­tions, and even lunch dri­ves.

In most cas­es, the di­rec­tors have per­son­al­ly con­tributed from their own pock­ets when the need out­weighed the funds raised.

This hands-on, all-heart mod­el is rare in a land­scape that is of­ten dri­ven by strate­gic part­ner­ships and PR-backed spon­sor­ships, but it al­so has its lim­i­ta­tions.

“The truth is, we’ve nev­er had sus­tained cor­po­rate or gov­ern­ment sup­port,” Ram­per­sad ex­plained.

“For years, we’ve qui­et­ly car­ried this mis­sion on our backs, fu­elled by pas­sion, per­son­al sac­ri­fice, and the gen­eros­i­ty of grass­roots sup­port­ers. But with the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges of re­cent years and the grow­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in our com­mu­ni­ties, the need has surged far be­yond what we can man­age alone. The de­mand for help is now out­pac­ing the re­sources we’ve been able to gath­er, and that’s a re­al­i­ty we can no longer ig­nore.”

Ram­per­sad in­vit­ed cor­po­rate en­ti­ties seek­ing mean­ing­ful, high-im­pact CSR op­por­tu­ni­ties in 2025 to part­ner with LRF.

“We are an NGO with proven in­tegri­ty, a trans­par­ent track record and deep ties to com­mu­ni­ties in need, es­pe­cial­ly those in un­der­served and rur­al ar­eas like Tabaquite, Bar­rack­pore, and Laven­tille,” he said.

“A part­ner­ship with LRF doesn’t just check a cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty box, it of­fers re­al align­ment with the val­ues of em­pa­thy, eq­ui­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

“The foun­da­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly open to sup­port for its re­cur­ring ini­tia­tives, such as its an­nu­al char­i­ty dri­ve for chil­dren in need of health­care, its back-to-school pro­gramme, and its emer­gency as­sis­tance fund. What’s miss­ing isn’t pas­sion, willpow­er or strat­e­gy, it’s scale. And that scale will on­ly come with sup­port.”

As the LRF steps in­to its next phase, its sto­ry serves as a re­minder of what re­al char­i­ty looks like: qui­et, con­sis­tent, and coura­geous.

To get in touch with the LRF email ker­ryra­m­per­sad@hot­mail.com; kirkram@hot­mail.com or call/What­sApp: 1-868-687-5959 or 1-868-620-6355

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion vis­it @lynet­ter­am­per­sad­foun­da­tion on In­sta­gram and Face­book.


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