Campus groups raise relief funds for Philippines typhoon

In light of the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines this past Thursday, campus groups are banding together to try to raise relief funds.

All of the events headlining Asian Pacific American Heritage Week will now have donation jars on site. It is still undecided where the funds collected through these donation jars will go to.

Wharton senior Paulo Bautista, vice president of the Penn Philippine Association and one of three programming chairs of APAHW, said that Filipino students who are particularly involved in the Filipino community will work to “allocate the funds to the most affected places in the Philippines.”

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Bautista said that there is a meeting planned between the PPA, the Undergraduate Assembly and the Asian Pacific Student Coalition to try to put together some sort of event specifically focused on relief funding efforts.

The University is also planning an event for relief funding, according to Bautista, though the details are not yet disclosed. The event will probably be this Thursday, Nov. 14, from 5-7 p.m., immediately preceding the APAHW’s Kina Grannis event, which is scheduled from 7-9 p.m. in Bodek Lounge.

Other events this week are being tailored to relief funding as well. College senior Akiff Premjee, another programming chair for APAHW, said that the APAHW Big Asian event, a talent show and date auction scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 16, will be giving prize money to whomever wins the competition. Bautista expects that should the PPA win the contest, they will likely donate their prize to typhoon relief.

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Bautista said that while many students in PPA and who participate in APAHW have family and friends in the Philippines, it is likely that few of their families were directly harmed.

“I and most of the board have family in the Philippines, but they’re based in Manila, which was not severely affected,” Bautista said. “I don’t know of anyone on campus whose family was affected or who would be willing to talk about it at this time.”

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