RLOM Relief Progress-NY

New York, NY. Rain Love on Manila-NY conducted the following activities for raising funds to send to disaster relief areas in Leyte.

Nov 17: Birthday Party/Fundraising for Alegre Family

Rain Love on Manila volunteers Deb Flores, Maria Alegre, and Cara de los Reyes.

Nov 20: Collaborative Fundraiser for Doctors without Borders, NAFCON (a Filipino org that works with smaller grass roots orgs), and Team Rubicon (also responded to Hurricane Sandy victims), at Juke Bar, NYC

Doctors Without Borders.

NAFCOMUSA.org

Team Rubicon.

Nov 21: Fundraising for Yu Family, Spearheading Relief Operations in Cebu

Shirt sale includes Rain Love on Manila shirts, and other shirts made by Filipino graphic designers.

RLOM Relief Progress - LA

Los Angeles, CA. RLOM-LA Head Volunteer Ritz Calvo along with Claud Yee-Calvo and his family spearheaded collections mid to end of November, of in-kind relief goods for dropoffs through Atlas Courier.

Fundraiser Weeknights at Juke Bar

New York, New York. Thanks to thespian Maria Alegre who celebrated her birthday by doing a fundraiser last Sunday, Rain Love on Manila New York has made connections with cool Juke Bar NYC at 196 E 12th Street for back-to-back fundraiser piggybacks on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Juke Bar is between 13th and 12th on 2nd avenue.

We are selling limited edition graphic tees made by Filipino graphic designers in the Philippines, as well as precious few Rain Love on Manila shirts. 100% of the sales of these shirts will go to the Philippine National Red Cross, whom RLOM has always sent their contributions.

Please visit the Rain Love on Manila Facebook group page to check out the shirt designs!

Shirts from Team Manila, Analog Soul, Hippie Days, Pinoy Lab, Electromagnetic Tentacle, Adobo Magazine, Jewels Greenhills, SPOOFS are among the featured designs on sale.

Rain Love on Leyte and beyond

New York, New York. It's been 12 days since typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda raped the Philippines. The eyes of the entire world are now focused on an archipelago that has always been too hospitable to storms of massive destruction. And the Filipino is in the spotlight, both as the helpless and the helpful, as the victim and the savior.

As the world comprehends the nature and the consequences of this natural anomaly - of a climate in such total imbalance, that a land mass inhabited by over 10 million people be close to eradicated from maps from this point onward - we fill the gaps of our knowledge with a world-record tilt toward compassion. This is what I take away from the flood - of photos, articles, TV coverage, status updates, links, likes, comments and all other vessels of information about this disaster. What is to go down in history as the worst day of the country is slowly being rewritten as the day following the days in which the country and its neighbors become better. In a place made barren by the forces of nature, the forces of men came for their fellowmen. And we were there for each other, the way we often forget to be.

Rain Love on Manila is a grass-roots initiative that was meant to respond to the typhoon disaster in 2009. But every year, because the Philippines receives an average of 19 typhoons annually, Rain Love on Manila resurfaces to do what we can - either tell our story to more people, or find a way to send basic needs to those in need, or connect with others on a message of hope.

For Yolanda, Rain Love on Manila chooses to resume efforts quietly, which means that our aim is simply to gather and send relief from different places in the world back to the Philippines, where it hurts the most.

In NYC, we are:
1) gathering in-kind donations, for sending through LBC to either LBC Foundation or the Philippine National Red Cross
2) asking for monetary donations, for wire-delivering to the Philippine National Red Cross
3) driving people to donate through other means and charities like World Vision, etc.
4) selling Rain Love on Manila shirts and other limited-edition Filipino-designed graphic shirts, with 100% of the sale going to the Philippine National Red Cross

In LA, we are:
1) gathering in-kind donations, for sending through LBC to either LBC Foundation or the Philippine National Red Cross

In the UK, we are:
1) gathering in-kind donations, for sending through LBC to either LBC Foundation or the Philippine National Red Cross

Please watch this blog for other updates.

We urge you to send us your ideas on how else to provide disaster relief despite the distance, or to send us your comments and inquiries on how to help by emailing rainloveonmanila@yahoo.com.