Baby food, personal hygiene products needed

Being a flood victim should not prevent one from helping out.

This is the mantra of many volunteers who trooped to ABS-CBN’s Sagip Kapamilya, the relief and rehabilitation arm of the network--in one of the finest examples of volunteerism in the midst of a tragedy.

With no money to give, people who swarmed the gates of Sagip Kapamilya said they would still like extend their help by contributing time and effort to the relief program.

The volunteers, most of them teens, said they were moved after watching the grim situation of the people whose homes were submerged at the height of typhoon Ondoy. Following the ABS-CBN telethon on Sunday, many people called the Sagip Kapamilya hotline inquiring how to volunteer.

Some of them were flood victims themselves.

Doing their part
Sarika Buendicho, 20, said floodwaters in their house in Sampaloc were waist-deep, damaging or destroying many of their belongings. She pitied the family’s situation, but after learning what others had to endure from the torrential rains, she felt more fortunate.

As soon as the roads were passable again, Buendicho went to the Sagip Kapamilya warehouse to help in the relief operations in her own small way.

“I can’t offer them anything, but just my service, like packing food or carrying the boxes of relief goods. Hindi ko man sila matulungan directly, I can still help them through this” Buendicho said adding that some of her relatives living in Marikina City were also left homeless by the typhoon.

It is not the first time that Buendicho got involved in a volunteer work. She said she regularly joins medical missions in her home province in Quezon.

Nora Mari, 37, of Grace Park in Caloocan City, was also a flood victim but the sight of many other people in more miserable situations prevented her from indulging in self-pity.

Shortly after she registered, she quickly began her volunteer work, filing plastic bags with rice.

Return on Tuesday
Leony Beringuela, along with her friends, traveled from Calamba City in Laguna after hearing ABS-CBN appeal for more volunteers.

“Ito lang ang paraan para kami makatulong, wala rin naman kaming perang mai-dodonate,” Beringuela said. She said she doesn’t mind the heat inside the warehouse, and the rain outside it, as long as she knows she is helping the typhoon victims.

Other adults brought their families to help, realizing that it is a good opportunity to instill in their children the value of selfless service to others.

With the more than 120 registered volunteers, Sagip Kapamilya advised other volunteers to return Tuesday since they cannot accommodate all inside the warehouse.

As more deliveries of donations poured into Sagip Kapamilya, the disaster assistance group seeks more donations for babies’ food among others.

Baby food, personal hygiene products

Volunteers who were packing relief goods inside the warehouse observed that most of the donations are sacks of rice and bottles of mineral water. Though there was constant unloading of boxes of ready-to-eat food like cans of sardines, a Sagip Kapamilya volunteer said they seldom pack infant milk and other baby food.

“We are also concerned with the children, especially the babies. Right now, we have enough donations of rice and mineral water, but we don’t receive other basic needs like milk, sugar, and coffee. And for the babies, infant milk and instant cereals,” a staff of Sagip Kapamilya said.

Meanwhile, an emergency assistance group also called for donation for gender-specific needs like sanitary napkins for women and clean briefs for men.

“Let us include sanitary napkins, wet and dry tissues, body soaps and clean briefs in our donations. We hope that local governments and other institutions that are organizing relief efforts and setting up evacuation centers will take into account our differences as people with particular identities, gender and sexualities, among others,” screen play writer Pete Lacaba added.

There are more than 400,000 people who were affected by typhoon Ondoy in Metro Manila and its nearby provinces. As of Sunday, Sagip Kapamilya had already received P25-million worth of relief goods to be distributed to the victims of typhoon Ondoy. - Newsbreak