The Sangguniang Kabataan in Cabantian handed five kilos of rice to households in the barangay last April 25.
The relief operation was conducted following the initial distribution of food packs by the barangay council during the first week of April and the city government last April 13.
According to SK chairperson Katherine Faye Gador, they observed that some households were not able to receive the food rations in the first two distributions. There are an estimated 15,000 households in the barangay and the beneficiaries of the rations given by the city government were only 3,000.
“We thought that since the ECQ was extended, we might as well give assistance to the barangay using our unused funds,” Gador said.
The SK spent P3.3 million of its unused budget from 2008 to 2017. All in all, they distributed 10,340 packs of rice, covering 45 out of 65 puroks in the barangay.
She said they faced the challenge of finding volunteers to repack the rice.
“We created a system where we schedule deliveries where the direct contact to the Purok Leader is needed,” she said.
“We established an information center for COVID-19 concerns and we realized how vital giving out legitimate information and hearing out people’s concerns would already be a big help to the community,” she added.
Gador assured that their relief operation would continue until they could reach out to all the households.
