“We are grateful to all volunteers who continue to share their time, effort, and resources to our ongoing disaster operations in areas affected by Typhoon Ompong.”

This was emphasized by DSWD Secretary Virginia N. Orogo as she recognized the continuous outpouring of interest for volunteer work at the Department’s National Resource  Operations Center (NROC) as well as in regions hit by ‘Ompong’.

In NROC alone, volunteers keep on coming to help repack relief goods that will be delivered to augment the resources of  typhoon-hit local government units (LGUs).

Since the Department has called for volunteers last September 15, around 2,370 individuals have helped the Department in rice bagging, box forming, inspecting and sorting of family food packs, as well as in cleaning the warehouses at NROC.  The number does not include those who have volunteered in the different regional offices in the affected regions.

Some of the organizations which have volunteered were St. Francis Church, Rice Guardians Community,  Accenture,  Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Philippine Coast Guard,  Caregiver of the Philippines, Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte National Executive Coordinating Committee.

There were also volunteers from Senior Citizens Group (Brgy. 58 Zone 5), Citizens Crime Watch Force, Philippine Information Agency, Road Board, PhilAm Life Philippines, Adventist Church, Catholic Women’s League (Malibay), A. Maceda High School,  Far East Rescue,  and Cummins Sales and Service Philippines.

In Region II, students from the Cagayan State University (CSU), University of St. Louis Tuguegarao (USLT), and University of Cagayan Valley (UCV) volunteered to repack locally-purchased goods into family food packs ready for distribution to the affected areas within the region.

For those who want to volunteer,  they may contact NROC at (02) 5539864, 8528081 or through mobile numbers 0916-9781389 or 0915-3095311.

Meanwhile, Sec. Orogo also thanked partners like the Philippine Disaster Resiliency Foundation, North Luzon Expressway Corporation, UPS Freight and Forwarding Company, and Jollibee Group Corporation for their assistance in transporting relief goods  and for providing meals to volunteers.

Assistance

To date, the Department has already provided P57,879,505.85 worth of food and non-food assistance to affected families inside and outside evacuation centers.

“We are on 24/7 disaster operations at the DSWD Central Office, as well as in the affected regions.  Distribution of family food packs is on-going in affected areas,” Sec. Orogo said.

The Secretary added, “We expect this disaster operations to take long because of the massive destruction brought by ‘Ompong’.  Although we have family food packs stored in our warehouses, it is important that we continue to repack to ensure adequate supplies.  This is where our volunteers greatly help us. We are able to cope with the continuous request for augmentation support with the help of the hundreds of people sharing their time in repacking goods.” ###