Donation drive held for victims of Tsunami
By Kay Dover
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The City College Polynesian Club and Pilipinos for Education, Art, Culture and Empowerment are sponsoring a donation drive to benefit victims of the natural disasters, which ravaged the South Pacific and the Philippines in recent weeks.
Club members and volunteers are manning a donation station in Ram Plaza on City College’s Ocean campus every weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are collecting diapers, cookware, Band-Aids, clothes, non-perishable foods and monetary donations to send to the Samoas, Tonga and the Philippines.
“We know it’s not going to save the whole world,” said John Tuapola, vice president of the Polynesian Club. “But whatever we can do, that’s good enough for us.”
The drive was a quick reaction to the magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck halfway between the islands of Samoa and Tonga on Sept. 29 at 6:48 a.m and triggered a tsunami which devastated numerous coastal villages. It left boats marooned on highways, injured hundreds and and forced thousands to scramble to higher ground.
The total death toll was nearing 170 a week later and is expected to climb. Many members of the Polynesian Club have family on the affected islands.
“Seeing our members crying when it first hit, it just moved us,” Tuapola said.
By nightfall on the day of the quakes, plans for the disaster relief drive were well underway.
The Polynesian Club joined forces with PEACE, whose members’ families in the Philippines are also in desperate need of aid after typhoons Ketsana and Parma scourged the islands, causing extensive flooding and landslides which killed at least 500 people. Ketsana hit on Sept. 26 and was followed by Parma on Oct. 3.
Choco Vilbar, president of the campus Filipino organization The Ate Kuya Project and former president of PEACE, said with relief that the family members he has spoken to are safe. Their homes, however, are covered in mud. He said he is heartened by the alliance between the clubs.
“Hopefully as this drive progresses, we hope to unify the Poly Club and the Filipino clubs for future events,” Vilbar said.
Members of both clubs spent the early days of October plastering the campus with flyers, sending e-mail notices to faculty and texting their friends to tell them about the drive.
Generous students are also spreading the word.
“I teach a tae kwon do class, so I’ll probably make an announcement,” said Cody Aguirre, 26, who stopped to give $5 in cash when he noticed the donation table in Ram Plaza on his way to class.
Maelani Acfalle, a hospitality management major at San Francisco State University, heard about the drive when she attended a candlelight vigil students held outside of Batmale Hall two days after the tsunamis hit.
“I’m here for moral support for everybody else whose family has been affected,” said Acfalle, who helps out at the Ram Plaza table on her days off from school at SF State.
Club leaders have made donating convenient for Ocean campus students by reaching out to other campus organizations. In addition to the table in Ram Plaza, items can be dropped off at the Asian Pacific American Student Success Program office in Batmale Room 222 and at the Students Supporting Students office in the Student Union Room 203 or the Queer Resource Center in Room 202.
“If it’s helping someone else out, you might as well invest what little time is involved,” said Alexis Bersonda, 18, who donated some cash at the Ram Plaza table and plans to return with a bag of clothes.
The drive was originally scheduled to end on Oct. 15, but has been extended through
Oct. 30 in light of additional earthquakes in the regions and anticipated need for further aid.
Club leaders said they may even extend the drive into November, and they may try to organize drives at other City College campuses.
Clothes, food and supply donations are shipped out weekly in free shipping containers provided by local non-profit and not-for-profit organizations including the San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center and the Samoan Community Development Center.
Monetary donations will be totaled at the end of the drive and divided evenly between the Philippine National Red Cross, the Samoa Red Cross and the Tonga Red Cross. Donations are tax-deductible.