Homeless abandoned children, women with small children needing shelter: over the years Auntie Leris and husband Garvin have met the challenges to fill the need. Auntie Leris, some 18 years ago, was in hospital with her daughter when she discovered a number of little children homeless and living at the hospital. She decided to take five of them home, not knowing how she would manage. We became involved with the Orphanage 16 years ago when we were first in Tobago having a hair cut. Procia, the hairdresser said, ‘You want to do something in this country, go visit the orphanage!’ There we met Auntie Leris, herself a registered nurse with her group of little children. The little ones that the Rotary Club of Truro sponsored to go to preschool are now graduated from high school.
The slide show follows the ‘orphanage’ from that first visit when they were living in Tobago. Crisis hit when the landlord ended their lease. Where could they go? They needed lots of room! Despite the small size of his family home, they decided to move to Garvin’s family home in Arima, Trinidad. Boys slept in another location due to lack of space. An addition was needed. Pictures show the addition at various stages. Our Rotary Club, working through the Rotary Club of Piarco bought building materials for the kitchen.
Auntie Leris always has surprises for us each time we visit. When the children were turning to be teenagers, they opened a takeout restaurant nearby to give the teenagers purpose, job experience and to create an income for the Family Cottage.
Then, two years ago as the teens were older, Auntie began taking in Mothers with their babies who were in crisis. One thing Auntie firmly believes in is keeping Mothers together with their babies. Again, the teens had purpose, to help care for them! Pictures show how the home has expanded to meet the needs at each stage.
Dec 2016, more changes. The babies are now toddlers so they have set up a Nursery School! Two of the girls, recently graduated from High School and are presently running a nursery program. Tuition is free at UWI. They will take the Early Childhood program if this is what they would like. In temporarily sheltering mothers and small children in crisis, they were sheltering orphans needing a home! Leris and Garvin have officially adopted another five little ones. Good they are still young with lots of energy! This is like a second big family! So, the infants of 15 months ago are now 2 year olds, hence the need for preschool.
When it came to choosing a category that the Slideshare would fit under, the only one that seemed appropriate was ‘spiritual’. Love in action!
He told the group that there were over 800 families that depended on the Index to help provide their children with a nice christmas. Some the gifts would go to other agencies for distribution and that there was a great deal of cooperation among agencies. It is important that there is consistency in the packaging of gifts so that the index gives out at a similar level as the other agencies. 
The Family Cottage in Arima, Trinidad has met the challenges at each stage of the children they have adopted and sheltered. The summary of the last 17 years is a good lead in to the Slideshare presentation linked below. Heartwarming to feel the love and caring in the home environment. 
