To cel­e­brate its 90th an­niver­sary, Massy Trinidad All Stars gave back to the need­i­est in its com­mu­ni­ty via the Holy Rosary Ro­man Catholic church yes­ter­day.

The band al­so held its 31st an­nu­al Thanks­giv­ing mass at the church at the cor­ner of Park and Hen­ry Streets in Port-of-Spain.

The mass is usu­al­ly held at the start of the year, ahead of the Car­ni­val sea­son.

It is one of two Thanks­giv­ing events held by the band. The sec­ond takes place at the end of year and is host­ed at the Duke Street Pa­n­yard.

Dur­ing the of­fer­to­ry yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the band hand­ed over sev­er­al bags of food items to Fr Thomas Willem­sen in ad­di­tion to the reg­u­lar col­lec­tion tak­en dur­ing the mass.

The band’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Sta­cy Ann Patrick, con­firmed that the food items do­nat­ed were col­lect­ed fol­low­ing a food dri­ve which was start­ed at the pan or­ches­tra’s end of year Thanks­giv­ing event.

“We are a band, and we just so thank­ful that we ex­ist. We do re­alise that with­out a high­er force, the things that we’ve been able to do over a 90-year pe­ri­od just would not have hap­pened. So that is im­por­tant to us to give thanks.” 

She added: “To­day, you may have no­ticed dur­ing the of­fer­to­ry ses­sion that a lot of peo­ple were bring­ing up bags, that was just a por­tion of the food­stuff that we would have col­lect­ed in the pan yard, ba­si­cal­ly from our mem­ber­ship.” 

Patrick con­firmed that the items will be dis­trib­uted to the most vul­ner­a­ble via the church. 

“We give that to Holy Rosary and they will re-dis­trib­ute it to those in the com­mu­ni­ty that need it. So that is part of our Thanks­giv­ing ser­vice, to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. 

In at­ten­dance was Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore and pan­man Dane Gul­ston was a fea­tured soloist dur­ing the post-com­mu­nion med­i­ta­tion. All of the hymns dur­ing the ser­vice were ac­com­pa­nied by pan, played by mem­bers of the band. 

 Trinidad All Stars, which of­fi­cials said is the old­est steel band in the world, has won 11 Panora­ma ti­tles and are cur­rent­ly joint cham­pi­ons af­ter ty­ing for the 2024 crown with BP Rene­gades.