THE season of giving is upon us, and, despite the challenges brought on by COVID-19, Food For The Poor Guyana (FFTP) is continuing with its Christmas tradition of spreading the joy of the season.

The organisation, under its Angels of Hope programme, extended its generosity to several orphanages through the annual distribution of its Christmas donations and the commencement of its toy drive.

In keeping with the organisation’s mandate to assist the less fortunate, the donations were made to eight orphanages, to assist them in the day-to-day care of the children.

The Guyana Chronicle caught up with the coordinator of the Angels of Hope programme, Kaleeda Crandon.

“Every Christmas there is a toy drive wherein we give personalised gifts to the different children’s homes and usually there’s the Christmas party; we might take them on an outing or something but given the covid-19 restrictions, we will just be donating the toys this year. We’re in the process of distributing them right now, because I want to ensure that the children get it before Christmas,” she remarked.

When asked about the organisation’s efforts to assist the orphanages outside of the current outreach, Crandon indicated that donations are regularly made.

“On a monthly basis these orphanages receive donations from us with regards to food clothing and other items they might need, school supplies and so on and most of them are the ones that don’t get regular support from other donors and that is why we tend to prioritise these nine homes,” she said.

Kamal Children Home, Hope Children’s Home, St. John Bosco Orphanage, Blessed the Children Home, A Sanctuary, Save R Kids Children’s Home, Hauraruni Girls’ Home and Joshua House Children’s Centre are the institutions that benefit from the toy drive and annual donation.

The Christian relief programmes and projects implemented by the organisation are helping vulnerable groups by providing food, housing, health care, education, water projects, emergency relief, and micro-enterprise assistance in the Caribbean and Latin America.