Front­line work­ers, in­clud­ing nurs­es who have been fac­ing the brunt of the pan­dem­ic for the past year, have re­ceived a spe­cial gift of grat­i­tude from farm­ers this week.

Ma­yaro farmer Roger Lobin do­nat­ed 7,000 pounds of can­taloupe and hon­ey­dew mel­ons, some of which went to the hos­pi­tal staff and po­lice of­fi­cers. 

The pro­duce is be­ing dis­trib­uted by agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj through his Yard Mar­ket in Ch­agua­nas. Since last year, Ma­haraj in­tro­duced the yard mar­ket to pro­vide sup­port to peo­ple who want to cre­ate their home gar­dens as well as those who were find­ing it dif­fi­cult to pro­vide food for their fam­i­lies.

A throng of peo­ple came to col­lect the pro­duce on Fri­day. The first batch of mel­ons had been shared among needy fam­i­lies across the coun­try. 

One of the nurs­es who col­lect­ed the pro­duce told Guardian Me­dia, 

“We are so hap­py to re­ceive this gift. It re­al­ly shows us that the farm­ers care about us,” she added.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj said he was thank­ful to the farm­ers for their gen­eros­i­ty, not­ing that since the pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple could not feed their fam­i­lies.

“For us to reach the wide net­work of peo­ple we had vol­un­teers who worked to­geth­er to make it hap­pen. This fruit is trav­el­ling cross coun­try. Nurs­es at San Fer­nan­do were very ap­pre­cia­tive. We al­so reached fam­i­lies in Point Fortin. We sent pro­duce to the St James Health Cen­tre as well as those who have been at­tend­ing clin­ics. We will al­so send to the San Fer­nan­do Fa­cil­i­ty for dis­placed peo­ple,” he added. 

He not­ed that the pro­duce shared by farm­ers amount­ed to over $40,000 and even though farm­ers had their bur­dens with lar­ce­ny and high op­er­a­tional costs, they were thank­ful to share their abun­dant har­vest with those in need.

An­oth­er farmer Nicholas Boodram praised the nurs­ing staff at Princes Town and said the pan­dem­ic had shown the re­silience and ded­i­ca­tion of the nurs­ing staff.

“We see the need to high­light and give back to the ones who are mak­ing the sac­ri­fices for us, those nurs­es who are al­so vac­ci­nat­ing peo­ple as well,” he added. 

The Yard mar­ket is lo­cat­ed at Scor­pi­on Lane in Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas and is usu­al­ly opened the last week­end of each month. 

—Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va