Melfort Rotary Club pitches in to help typhoon victims in Philippines

By Byron Hackett, The Journal
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:36:49 CST AM
 
Published with permission of the Melfort Journal
http://www.melfortjournal.com/2013/11/26/melfort-rotary-club-pitches-in-to-help-typhoon-victims-in-philippines

lRotarian Gordon Liddle was at the ShelterBox display in the Melfort Mall on Monday, November 25. The Melfort Rotary Club in just ten days have raised over $20,000 to send ShelterBoxes to help relief efforts for victims of typhoon Hayian in the Philippines.

 

 
It has been two weeks since the remarkable tragedy of typhoon Haiyan struck the Island of the Philippines. In the time since, there has been response from organizations around the world attempting to help.
The Rotary Club of Melfort is one of those organizations and they have teamed up with SHELTERBOX CANADA to raise money to send shelterboxes to the Philippines.
The Rotary Club of Melfort has already done an exceptional job of fundraising and will continue to do so until December 8.  
“We have raised to date from Melfort, $21,400. All the money raised will be matched by the federal government. So that’s 40 shelter boxes going to the Philippines just through our efforts,” Gailmarie Anderson said.
She also added that this past weekend was fantastic for donations. The weekend was kicked off by radio-thon by CJVR on Friday.
A shelterbox is a tent costs approximately $1000 dollars and includes transportation to the disaster site, supplies for purifying water, some food, cooking utensils, blankets and many other things a family of ten might need for living in a crisis situation.
Rotarians will be on hand at the Melfort Mall until December 8 to accept donations. They will even be there on black Friday.
“People have been very generous and just wonderful. They really like coming into the mall and seeing the shelterbox and everything that it has. We have had a number of people from out of town come to donate,” Anderson said.
The cost of the damage is unknown but more than 11 million people have been displaced from their home or left homeless. According to the national count at least 3,633 people were killed in the disaster and there are still more than 1,179 missing.