RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The Com­mu­ni­ty-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion (COPS), East­ern Di­vi­sion, host­ed its An­nu­al Clothes and Toys Dri­ve in front of the Sinanan Build­ing in San­gre Grande last week, gar­ner­ing strong pub­lic sup­port.

Over the four-hour pe­ri­od, cloth­ing for men, women, boys, girls, and ba­bies, along with shoes and jew­ellery, was dis­trib­uted free of charge. Toys were al­so giv­en to chil­dren, bring­ing joy to the fam­i­lies who vis­it­ed the dis­tri­b­u­tion point.

Chil­dren al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in a spe­cial seg­ment where they sang songs and re­ceived toys. Re­fresh­ments were al­so pro­vid­ed to all in at­ten­dance.

Pas­tor Mo­han Nar­ine re­ceived an award dur­ing the event in recog­ni­tion of his un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment and ded­i­cat­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty of San­gre Grande and its en­vi­rons.

Of­fi­cers of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion were present through­out to or­gan­ise, guide, and in­ter­act with at­ten­dees, en­sur­ing a smooth flow of ac­tiv­i­ties. Mem­bers of the pub­lic ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the ini­tia­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son.

WPC Men­tor-Lockitt, who served as co­or­di­na­tor, said the event end­ed with­out in­ci­dent and met its ob­jec­tive of giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty, strength­en­ing po­lice and pub­lic part­ner­ships, and pro­mot­ing care, ser­vice, and com­pas­sion with­in the East­ern Di­vi­sion.

She said the event would not have been pos­si­ble with­out the sup­port of of­fi­cers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Com­mu­ni­ty-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion, in­clud­ing WPC Ryan, oth­er COPS of­fi­cers, and civil­ians Ashera Pacheco, Al­isha Leza­ma, Michelle Leza­ma, Ker­ry-Ann Row­ley, and Mau­ra Dick­son, who as­sist­ed with the dri­ve.

She added that team­work and ded­i­ca­tion con­tributed to the pos­i­tive out­come.

The event was spear­head­ed by WPC Men­tor-Lockitt and su­per­vised by Cpl Al­fred.