Joey Har­ry­nanan, di­rec­tor of the San­fest Na­tion­al Ju­nior Arts Fes­ti­val, has made a clar­i­on call for phys­i­cal and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance with the ju­nior arts fes­ti­val.

This year marks the 53rd edi­tion of the fes­ti­val which is open to pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents across T&T.

In his ad­dress at the re­cent Young Stars Tal­ent Com­pe­ti­tion fi­nals at Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, Har­ry­nanan ap­pealed for vol­un­teers for the an­nu­al ju­nior arts pro­duc­tion.

“The fu­ture is safe and strong and in good hands with these young and up­com­ing stars. I want to beg a lot, San­fest is a labour of love for the arts and it would be re­miss of me not to try to se­cure some help,” he said.

“We are in need of vol­un­teers. You can reach out to us and let us re­cov­er from where we are to where we are sup­posed to be. We are in­deed se­ri­ous about spon­sor­ship, it is mon­ey that makes things hap­pen of­ten times. There is room for im­prove­ment, it is un­der­fund­ed. NGC con­tin­ues to in­vest and we want to en­cour­age our spon­sors to put a lit­tle more. Be a lit­tle more gen­er­ous.

“As we re­cov­er from COVID-19 we have seen an in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion this year by 200 per cent.”

Chief judge Shel­don Scope ap­plaud­ed the fes­ti­val com­mit­tee and the young com­peti­tors for be­ing brave and step­ping up to the chal­lenge of the com­pe­ti­tion.

He said, like most things, train­ing is the se­cret to per­fec­tion. Scope said for most par­tic­i­pants the Q&A seg­ment can be in­tim­i­dat­ing but with train­ing, it all comes to­geth­er.

From a field of 15 pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school fi­nal­ists, 11-year-old Jae­van Har­ring­ton, of Av­o­cat Vedic School, emerged as this year’s young star win­ner.

In the Q&A seg­ment, Har­ring­ton said the mes­sage he hopes to con­vey dur­ing his per­for­mances is hap­pi­ness and joy as he ex­pe­ri­ences when he is on stage.

Har­ring­ton was a crowd favourite from the mo­ment he sang the first line of Nev­er Enough from the mu­si­cal The Great­est Show­man.

Plac­ing sec­ond and third were Av­ery Seep­er­sad, al­so of Av­o­cat Vedic School, who did a mono­logue, Ole Ways, and Arisa Ra­jan, of Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, with her ren­di­tion of Climb Every Moun­tain.

In the spe­cial award cat­e­go­ry for so­cial me­dia pres­ence, Seep­er­sad and Jen­ni­ka George shared the ac­co­lades.

The prize giv­ing for the fes­ti­val will be held at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, on De­cem­ber 1.