Even af­ter a land­mark year that took him from Greece to Rus­sia in a record-break­ing move, Levi Gar­cia has not for­got­ten where his jour­ney be­gan.

As Christ­mas ap­proached, the Spar­tak Moscow for­ward and Trinidad & To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al, along­side fel­low na­tion­al play­er Den­zil Smith, played a key role in a com­mu­ni­ty ham­per dri­ve in the San­ta Flo­ra area, an ini­tia­tive aimed at sup­port­ing fam­i­lies in need dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son.

​The dri­ve, now an an­nu­al tra­di­tion, pro­vid­ed food ham­pers and es­sen­tial house­hold items to res­i­dents, with a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on eas­ing the bur­den for those fac­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges dur­ing the Christ­mas hol­i­days. Both Gar­cia and Smith were pub­licly thanked by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers for their con­tri­bu­tions and hands-on in­volve­ment.

The ini­tia­tive was sup­port­ed by fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends, and vol­un­teers, high­light­ing a col­lec­tive ef­fort rather than a one-man ges­ture. One fam­i­ly mem­ber who as­sist­ed with trans­porta­tion dur­ing the dri­ve de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as deeply mov­ing.

“It was an ho­n­our to be the trans­port man on this ham­per dri­ve with you, cuz,” he said. “See­ing the joy on some of these peo­ple’s faces as they re­ceived their ham­pers was a re­al bless­ing to me. I’m re­al­ly, re­al­ly proud of you, Levi. You brought smiles to peo­ple’s faces and joy in­to their hearts this Christ­mas.”

He added: “Bless­ings to you and the en­tire fam­i­ly. Thank you for pour­ing in­to our com­mu­ni­ty. We ap­pre­ci­ate all you do. Big up your­self. Sea­son’s greet­ings.”

For Gar­cia, giv­ing back is close­ly tied to his jour­ney. Born in San­ta Flo­ra in No­vem­ber 1997, he rose from lo­cal foot­ball to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, be­gin­ning his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer with AZ Alk­maar be­fore spells in Is­rael and ma­jor suc­cess with AEK Athens, where he won the Greek Su­per League and Cup in the 2022–23 sea­son. His move to Spar­tak Moscow in 2025 marked the largest trans­fer fee for a Trinidad & To­ba­go play­er.

As he pre­pares to re­sume club du­ties abroad, Gar­cia’s con­tin­ued in­volve­ment in com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives back home serves as a re­minder that his im­pact ex­tends well be­yond the pitch—bring­ing re­lief, smiles, and a sense of uni­ty to San­ta Flo­ra dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.