Sto­ry and pic­tures by

In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

The Na­pari­ma Col­lege past pupils alum­ni re­mem­ber the needy pupils of the school with a Christ­mas fundrais­er; Naps Men can Parang re­cent­ly at the Na­pari­ma Bowl Court­yard in San Fer­nan­do.

Alum­ni Past Pupils As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Joel Sim­mons said it was the first for the school to reach out to the res­i­dent play­ers and the wider pub­lic who has a spe­cial in­ter­est in the Col­lege.

Sim­mons said the fes­tiv­i­ties breed a sense of kin­dred and share the cheer with those who may not be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a good one.

“We just want­ed peo­ple to come out and en­joy the sea­son as well as to raise funds for the ad­min­is­tra­tion and un­der priv­i­lege stu­dents in the school. Be­cause we are a pres­tige school the mind­set is that every­body is of a cer­tain class, and at the end of the day stu­dents pass SEA from all dif­fer­ent back­grounds and all so­cial stan­dards.

“Our mot­to is to put stu­dents first, so we as alum­ni try to give back to ad­min and stu­dents and make sure that every­body has an equal play­ing field so when it is time to ex­cel in ex­ams no­body is left be­hind or at a dis­ad­van­tage,” Sim­mons said.

He said many pupils are pri­vate about their needs, and the as­so­ci­a­tion to­geth­er with staff went in­to each class and de­ter­mined var­i­ous needs of each child that is not nec­es­sar­i­ly fi­nan­cial.

Sim­mons said: “We try to go in­to each form and (find) who needs the as­sis­tance. And once they reach out to us and once we find those stu­dents we would help them out as best as pos­si­ble. Some­times peo­ple are shy be­cause of peer pres­sure, they don’t re­al­ly come out.

“It is not on­ly fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, we try to give phys­i­o­log­i­cal help, what­ev­er as­sis­tance they need not on­ly in school life but in their home life as well. Through­out the year we give ham­pers, but most specif­i­cal­ly we try to give vouch­ers be­cause some­times it might be a bit shame­ful if you have to pick up a big ham­per…it is more dis­crete, we would give you a dol­lar val­ue of vouch­er to vis­it the gro­cery, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals al­so book store of sta­tion­ary and book store.”

He said the event was suc­cess­ful and de­pend­ing on the earn­ings they would dis­trib­ute ac­cord­ing to the needs of each child.

Sim­mons said the next fundrais­er would be the an­nu­al Naps Fete for Car­ni­val. He said they changed the nar­ra­tive of the fete to make it all-in­clu­sive to en­cour­age ca­ma­raderie, to­geth­er­ness, and the nos­tal­gia of the alum­ni to­geth­er for a good cause.

Shar­ing in the evening en­ter­tain­ment were pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo, Rome, and La Man­sion Parang group.