MANILA — With couches, TV sets and flip-flops floating down the swollen Pasig and Marikina rivers, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began relief efforts in the basement and garage of the Church area office building in Quezon City.
Mormon Helping Hands volunteers dressed in jeans and sneakers as well as dresses, shirts and ties wait for the arrival of rice to be repackaged for delivery and articles for hygiene kits and diapers to be readied for distribution to those waiting in evacuation centers. Church volunteers came from nearby congregations as the first set of supplies arrived. Several of the Church’s large chapels are already being used to house up to 400 stranded people per chapel in Marikina and Laguna. Volunteers from Quezon City and Manila stakes (similar to dioceses) responded to the call for service and arrived wearing their bright yellow Mormon Helping Hands vests. Although some of their own homes were knee-deep in water, they came to help. Read more…