Contributions made to the Relief from Hearts of Nacogodoches last month helped the Greater Manila Association to provide assistance to some of Manila's outlying provinces affected by Typhoon Ketsana.
The tropical storm dropped nearly a month's worth of rainfall on the greater Manila region in less than 10 hours on Sept. 26, according to Jeffrey Cueves, who recently returned from the area.
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Jeffrey Cueves, at right, poses for a photo with several volunteers and high school students at a Greater Manila Association packaging center in Quezon City, Philippines. Cueves, a native of Marikina, Philippines, spent two weeks in the Manila area following severe flooding in his hometown from Typhoon Ketana.
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"The Filipino community is very appreciative of the Nacogdoches community," he said, adding that while he was unable to visit the distribution areas, he was able to see the relief packages being put together.
Shortly following Typhoon Ketsana, Cueves, a native of Marikina, Philippines, set up an account at Austin Bank for individuals to contribute donations to help relief efforts in Manila. Those donations were accepted until his two-week visit to the area on Oct. 16. He said through the generosity of local residents, he was able to present GMA, a Filipino Broadcast network that operates a foundation aimed at providing relief in emergency situations, with a check for $6,700 to use to distribute relief supplies to areas that needed it most.
"It was really successful," he said.
Cueves said during his trip he visited a local evacuation center in Marikina and a GMA packaging center in Quezon City. He also handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by the Nacogdoches Dental Center to children at a Manila school.
Cueves said that while at the packaging center in Quezon City, he joined more than 60 local high school students bundle clothes into packages to be distributed.
"After we pack the clothes, then they add the food and put it in a small plastic bag to be distributed," he said.
Cueves said he was unable to visit the distribution centers in the outlying provinces, which Nacogdoches contributions had gone to, because there was only one road that lead into those areas, and it was only accessible by truck.
"They told me I could bring my car, but my car wouldn't have been able to pass (the areas) where there had been landslides," Cueves said.
Instead, he visited local evacuation centers, where he saw residents continuing to live at a converted basketball court.
"It's a really small one, but this is usually what it looks like," he said, noting the number of clustered Marikina residents living at the center, many without cots or any other type of bedding. "These are the people who are below poverty line."
Cueves said that during his trip he was able to visit many of the places that had received extreme flood damage he had seen in videos and photographs his friends sent him or had posted on their social networking pages.
He said while he was there, relief workers in the streets focused their attention on collecting all the garbage that remained, and much of the water that had spilled out from the river had receded.
Cueves said he was grateful for all the contributions local residents and businesses made, noting "it bears a lot to us, because it really helped."
