Perhaps this year’s Easter will be very different from the previous years. Well, everything probably is. Mass is telecast since the outbreak of the pandemic. The Visita Iglesia and novenas will have to be virtual done at home. Easter Sunday’s salubong before daybreak, when “angels descending form heaven” unveil the image of Christ to symbolize resurrection, was also canceled.
For many of us, no other Lenten season has been this important. It took a virus to have a deeper relationship with God or reconnect with Him. Prayer is uniting us. All of us seeking solace in His grace and praying for redemption from this crisis.
Making his presence felt all these time are his angels. Angels are among us, they’re plentiful and the wings and halos are not visible. They brave the most dangerous of tasks to help the community. We call them the frontliners.
But there are more angels around us. We see some of them on social media, others we don’t. These are the people who work day and night to make sure the frontliners are safe and are well fed. They also deserve the applause.
Although we come across names that are familiar to us, most of them remain anonymous. #AGenerousDavao is one of these groups. The only photos that make the rounds on social media are the happy faces of the beneficiaries.
“Three weeks ago when Davao still had zero positive cases, my cousin-in-law Dr. Rina Angeles and I were talking about COVID-19. That conversation ended in us forming a small Viber group of family and friends, which quickly turned into a donations drive when they started making cash and item pledges,” said Michelle Seng-Ang.
They initially identified Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) as the main beneficiary, since it’s the hospital accepting the COVID-19 cases.
“We found a supplier for 1,000 pieces of the yellow KleenGuard suits, which we later found out was reusable. We thought it was a very high goal to begin with, but our group of generous donors quickly proved us wrong. Since then, we have given other PPEs, including safety googles, head caps, shoe covers, and face shields which some of our members made themselves through sheer ingenuity.”
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| Face shieds for medical frontliners and new-born babies* |
The Viber chat group started out with 50 people which grew to 250, the allowable number. So other members had to leave to make way for new ones. But the donors came from non-Viber members, too.
As of April 8, the group received more than six million pesos in pledges and donations of protective gears, food and vitamins are continuously handed to SPMC.
The next big project of the group is to build two emergency quarantine facilities in SPMC. It will have a total capacity of 34 beds.
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| The next big project-the building of two emergency facilities with a total of 34 beds* |
“The generosity of the people is really overwhelming. If there is anything Rina and I would like to emphasize, it really is this. We can only do this with a generous Davao community. They are the ones who push us to keep raising our goals higher and higher day by day, because ultimately we all share the same goal in keeping our frontliners safe.”
We, too, are angels. In our little ways we contribute to the betterment of the situation. Each of us create a tiny ripple, and with the other ripples we create waves of difference. I’m talking about staying home. Realizing that it’s our moral obligation, we contribute greatly to flattening the curve. It diminishes the possibility of transmission, and in effect diminishes the risk to our frontliners, diminishing their work load as well.
Together we can flatten the curve.
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| Here’s how to make a donation* |
*All photos provided by #AGenerousDavao
Also published in the SunStar Davao newspaper.
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