SOS: Our Response to the Philippines

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! As we gather with family and friends this holiday to acknowledge our blessings, please remember how little the Philippines is surviving on. Any donation will help! Thank you thank you thank you! Click here to Donate Now!

A message from our own CoEXIST dancer, Lauren Sion:

A category 5 super typhoon (Haiyan/Yolanda) devastated the Philippines on November 8, 2013 displacing 4 million people and affecting 13 million.  Thousands have lost their lives and more than a thousand people are still missing as the Philippines continues to find relief for all of the areas affected by this natural disaster.  A little less than a month earlier, the province of Bohol was hit with a 7.2 magnitude earthquake where thousands lost their homes and more than a million people were affected. 

My family was blessed that everyone was ok.  My mother grew up in the Bohol province where our ancestral house of more than a 100 years is still standing with partial damage but others have been completely decimated.  We have many relatives still living there and their personal accounts of the earthquake aftermath is horrifying.  There are others who need our help.  While my family wasn't affected and we are so far away, it is still my heritage and my heart breaks.

The best and most effective way to help is through monetary donations.  Even if it is just $5 - that can go a long way.  It can buy, 16 pounds of rice, 10 cans of sardines, or 21 liters of water which, at this magnitude of devastation, will save so many lives!

Please. Open your hearts and donate whatever little you can!  You will be making more of a difference than you know for these people who have lost loved ones, homes and literally everything. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you-
Lauren Sion