RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

The 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (1stCFS) of the USA re­cent­ly hand­ed out thou­sands of dol­lars’ worth of school sup­plies, toys and food, to fam­i­lies and home­less in­di­vid­u­als in Trinidad, who need­ed it the most dur­ing the Yule­tide sea­son.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing es­sen­tial and un­com­pro­mis­ing qual­i­ty ser­vices to de­vel­op­men­tal­ly dis­abled in­di­vid­u­als in Ohio (USA).

In its project, “Mis­sion Give­back”, the or­ga­niz­ers ex­pressed de­light in the fact that the de­liv­er­ies co­in­cid­ed with the hol­i­days.

Mis­sion Give­back’s goal in Trinidad was to pro­vide re­lief to those in need, and the 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices team in Trinidad made the de­liv­er­ies dur­ing a week-long pe­ri­od be­fore and af­ter Christ­mas.  Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, some 36 box­es of gro­ceries were de­liv­ered di­rect­ly to the homes of those in need in the San­gre Grande area, along with treat bags and more than 100 toys for chil­dren, just in time for Christ­mas.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a group of fam­i­lies with stu­dents who at­tend San­gre Grande Sec­ondary School and Tamana Hin­du School were giv­en tablets, to help their chil­dren with on­line learn­ing.

The 1st Choice team al­so pre­pared and de­liv­ered hot meals to 100 home­less in­di­vid­u­als af­ter the Christ­mas hol­i­day. The de­liv­ery route for the boxed meals be­gan in San­gre Grande and con­tin­ued through to Va­len­cia, Ari­ma, Mau­si­ca, Arou­ca, and Tu­na­puna, and end­ed in Curepe.

“It was very im­por­tant for 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices to make these de­liv­er­ies to the fam­i­lies and the home­less,” Shas­tri Coles, CFO of 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices said.

1st Choice learned of the needs through the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty po­lice and so­cial work­ers who serve the area; then, the 1st Choice staff based in Trinidad stepped in to help.

“The need for food and the ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties is in­creas­ing every­where. We in­tend to con­tin­ue our do­na­tion ef­forts here in Trinidad, and else­where around the world in 2021,” Coles added.

The Tablet distribution at the Tamana Hindu School during "Mission Giveback" project. Image courtesy 1st Choice Family Services (1stCFS).

Wayne W. Boodoo

About 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices

The ma­jor­i­ty of 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices staff is com­prised of di­rect sup­port pro­fes­sion­al em­ploy­ees aid­ing the de­vel­op­men­tal­ly dis­abled in their Ohio homes.  

1st Choice al­so is an in­ter­na­tion­al em­ploy­er with sup­port and cre­ative staff mem­bers from Trinidad. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the busi­ness has em­ploy­ees from the Philip­pines, Bangladesh, Kenya, Brazil and In­dia. 1st Choice Mis­sion Give­back phil­an­thropy ef­forts are al­so un­der­way in sev­er­al of these coun­tries, as well as Ohio, USA.

With over 14 years of ex­pe­ri­ence of pro­vid­ing clients with De­vel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ty Ser­vices, 1st Choice Fam­i­ly Ser­vices is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing an un­com­pro­mis­ing qual­i­ty ser­vice to fit each in­di­vid­ual client’s spe­cial­ized needs. Our mis­sion is to help peo­ple with de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties over­come life chal­lenges through ad­vo­ca­tion, self de­vel­op­ment, in­formed de­ci­sion mak­ing and to­tal com­mu­ni­ty in­te­gra­tion.

Learn more at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s web­site, here…  https://www.1stchoice­fam­il­y­ser­vices.org/