Raising funds for the Hernandez Family

Hey Everyone!

My name is Mary Jane Hernandez. As many of you may know, the Philippines was hit by one of their biggest typhoons in late December 2021 - Typhoon Rai aka Typhoon Odette. This typhoon caused catastrophic damages to many of the islands, most notably, in the Visaysas region. Within this area you will find the Silago Province, in the Southern Leyte region of the Visaysa .

 

Unfortunately, my aunt and 3 cousins live in Silago, and Typhoon Rai took out their entire home. They lost close to everything due to the storm and the only thing left is the bare external foundation of the house. Their roof was torn off. My family is currently using makeshift material (e.g. random metal parts and other scarce material they can find laying around) to temporarily cover the extensive damage to the roof from the on going rain. In addition, Typhoon Rai has also caused extreme damage to the neighboring trees and foliage. The trees have knocked down and fallen into my family's home. The walls of the home are crumbling and my family are using wooden planks and sticks to keep the house from collapsing on itself.

 

I barely received the news of the damages from my aunt less than a week ago. However, I was not aware of how bad the destruction was until I received the pictures from my cousin because they did not have signal to contact any of my family in the United States. The entire area was decimated and there is barely any running electricity, water, gas, food and more. You will see from the photos, that the house is not in any stable living conditions where my family can reside until the storm passes. Instead, my family and other survivors of the Silago Province have been camping out at the nearby beach. They have set up tents to help shield them from the rain, but it is still not helping much. Resources (e.g. food and water) are scarce due to road blocks/closures and my family is barely holding it together with what they have right now. Due to the road blocks, it has also been hard for my aunt and cousins to get government assistance since any type of supply transport is limited. My immediate family in the United States have been doing all we can to pool our money together and send it over so that they can buy the necessities they need right now to get by.

 

My aunt is a single mother raising and supporting my 3 younger cousins (my uncle passed away years ago). It's been heartbreaking and devastating for me to hear about what my family is going through back in the motherland. Due to the pandemic, my parents, sibling and I cannot travel back to the Philippines and help either. The government infrastructure in the Philippines is not as responsive as the United States. Nor do they have as many resources as we do.

 

I'm starting this page to help raise funds for my aunt to rebuild her home after the storm passes. The funds will be used to rebuild the entire property from the ground up because the region is planning to demolish all the homes and buildings. The damages are just too extensive to be salvaged so it all needs to be rebuilt. My family and I are looking to raise approximately $4,000USD, which is equivalent to $200,000 pesos. To all my family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers reading this, I just want to say thank you for what ever support you can provide. If there is anything you can donate to help my family, then I would be forever grateful and thankful to you .

I just want my aunt and cousins to be safe, fed and in a good shelter during this diffcult time. Even if it is just a dollar would help and with everyone's help we can make that happen.

 

Thank you so much for reading. I will be posting updates whenever I get them from my family.