AT midmorning yesterday, electronic dance music blared from a room filled with college students and young professionals. All 50 of them, standing close to each other, would clap and shout in unison every 10 minute or so, signaling a task has been done.
The group, however, was not at a posh Makati condominium unit to make the most out of the remaining days of summer. They were at a barely century-old building in Manila, packing at least 36,000 meals for malnourished children in the country.
“Did you hear them clap and shout?” Gota de Leche director Anna Leah Sarabia asked the Inquirer. “Every time somebody claps that means they have finished packing a box of meals.”
Each box contained 36 meal packs that will be given to Gota de Leche’s roughly 700 children beneficiaries, aged 3 to 7, in San Andres and Tondo in Manila, Malabon, San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan, and communities affected by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in 2013, such as those in Cebu. To follow are communities in Iloilo and Capiz. Asked why Leyte was not in their list, Sarabia said a lot ofnongovernment organizations are already helping the province.
The meal packing held yesterday at Gota de Leche’s headquarters on Loyola Street in Sampaloc was done in cooperation with Stop Hunger Now Philippines and was sponsored by chocolate manufacturer The Hershey Co., which shelled out around P522,000 ($11,600) for the project.
Each packed meal, composed of rice, soy, dried vegetables, vitamins and flavoring mix, can cater to a minimum of six children and to a maximum of 10 children, depending on the way it is cooked. It can be served as chicken arroz caldo, beef congee, fish flakes, champorado or ginataan.