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Grace Kwon, staff writer of Northern Valley Suburbanite, writes about an initiative in the US which aims to raise funds for Yolanda typhoon victims. FPTI is chosen among various NGO’s to receive financial support to continue relief operations.<\/p>\n
\nTENAFLY \u2014 After news broke about Typhoon Haiyan\u2019s destruction in the Philippines, which killed thousands of people and destroyed more than a million homes, Natalia Rodriguez, 14, wanted to do something that would help those displaced because of the storm.<\/p>\n
Despite being thousands of miles away from the devastation, the Tenafly High School freshman will combine her love for arts and community to host a benefit concert on Sunday, Dec. 15 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.<\/p>\n
The benefit concert will feature a variety of teenage performers, including a rock band, a rapper, chamber music groups, a classical guitarist, a solo singer, magician and three acapella groups.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said she felt a natural sympathy towards the Filipino people because of her familial roots. She enlisted help from her mother, Marisu, a native of the Philippines, to assist in planning and logistics.<\/p>\n
Though the Rodriguez family did not have any relatives immediately affected by the nation\u2019s deadliest typhoon, Marisu and her daughter were touched mainly by photos of the nation\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was heart wrenching to see a lot of children under 5 who are now homeless and have no parents,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat really impressed us was that in the pictures in the aftermath, you see the children still smiling and still really optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
To quickly spread word about the event, Rodriguez set up a Facebook event page, looking for help in any form. She asked her talented friends to provide entertainment, and others to donate baked goods to sell during the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very impressive to see how many teenagers willingly came to support her endeavor and expressed the desire to help out in any way,\u201d Marisu said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez also reached out to clubs in her school community to get more active participation. The Key Club, the school\u2019s volunteer club group, helped advertise and spread information about the event through word-of-mouth because of their large club participation.<\/p>\n
Besides trying to work around busy schedules to organizing the benefit, the mother and daughter team said that putting all the details together was, at times, challenging and overwhelming, especially when approaching local merchants for donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of us, we don\u2019t really have a thick face,\u201d Marisu said. \u201cWe don\u2019t like asking people for money, but since it\u2019s not for us, we really stepped up to the plate to go and approach people. We went out of our comfort zone to just do it because it\u2019s for a good cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAsking for help from other people was a bit of a struggle,\u201d added Rodriguez, \u201cbut the response was great. People were willing to help and a lot volunteered their talents for the concert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marisu said that donors have been \u201cvery supportive and generous\u201d and will not only provide prizes for the benefit\u2019s raffle and tricky tray, but also will cover the fixed cost to launch the event.<\/p>\n
Though the pair hopes to have a turnout that fills the auditorium\u2019s maximum capacity of 280 people, they also want the benefit to inspire the community to learn to give back.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if we don\u2019t raise a lot of money, I just want kids, especially in a very affluent community, to feel that they\u2019re giving,\u201d Marisu said.<\/p>\n
All proceeds will be donated to the Catholic Relief Agency and American Initiatives for Social Development to give directly to the victims of the storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grace Kwon, staff writer of Northern Valley Suburbanite, writes about an initiative in the US which aims to raise funds for Yolanda typhoon victims. FPTI is chosen among various NGO’s to receive financial support to continue relief operations. Tenafly teen organizing concert to help victims of typhoon TENAFLY \u2014 After news broke about Typhoon Read more about FPTI receives funding for Yolanda typhoon victims through American initiatives<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-relief","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fptiphilippines.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/FPTI-receives-funding-for-Yolanda-typhoon-victims-through-American-initiatives.png?fit=820%2C375&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/1515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fptiphilippines.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}