FACULTY members, student leaders and alumni came together to raise funds to support staff and health care frontliners amid the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
The UST Faculty Association of Senior High School initiated the donation drive dubbed “Para kina Ate at Kuya,” to support security and maintenance staff at the Buenaventura G. Paredes, O.P Building and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Building, O.P. Building.
“Maliit man o malaki, mula sa mga indibidwal na sakripisyo ng mga front liners, organisasyonal na pagsisikap, hanggang institusyonal na pagkilos at pakikiisa para labanan ang pandemya, nariyan ang mahalagang diwa ng pagmamalasakitan na dapat at kailangang lumaganap ngayon sa buong bansa,” Filipino teacher Jonathan Geronimo said.
Accountancy alumnus Robert Calimag, in coordination with the College of Accountancy administration and faculty club, called on students and fellow alumni to raise funds to support personnel of the UST-AMV College of Accountancy building.
“I believe everything that we can give and we can get in these times of crisis will be of big help to them,” Calimag said in an online interview with the Varsitarian.
Commerce professor Edwin Suson, together with entrepreneurship graduates Danielle Fredeluces and John Carl Santos, launched an online fundraising campaign.
“Sobrang nakakatuwa na [even if] we’re all in need of help during these trying times, we still have the heart and the compassion to give what we can give,” Fredeluces said.
Education professor Myra de Leon said she and her co-faculty members “unanimously decided” to contribute monetary donations when news of a community quarantine broke out.
“Thomasians are very selfless. ‘Di tayo masyado nagyayabang na we are doing this and that, but our actions speak louder,” de Leon said.
On March 27, the UST Central Student Council (CSC), in partnership with the Student Organizations Coordinating Council (SOCC), launched a fundraiser for the “ates and kuyas” of Tan Yan Kee Student Center.
CSC Secretary Krizia Bricio told the Varsitarian the maintenance personnel at the student center were also affected by the “no work, no pay” policy, and were in need of financial assistance.
PPEs for frontliners
The UST College of Nursing meanwhile spearheaded a donation drive for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies to different hospitals in Metro Manila.
“We asked our close friends, high school and college batchmates and alumni. Then we decided to extend it and it became a joint project of the UST College of Nursing and UST Nurses Alumni Association Incorporated,” Nursing Dean Rowena Escolar Chua told the Varsitarian in an online interview.
UST High School Batch 1996 was among the donors of the Nursing drive. Almost 30 different medical institutions have received supplies as of writing.
Varsitarian alumni contributed to the fund to procure PPEs for UST Hospital and the Lung Center of the Philippines, spearheaded by the UST Medicine Student Council and UST Hospital post-graduate interns.
Batch 2003 of the UST Education Highschool (EHS) held donation drives and fundraising projects for PPEs in Sta. Ana Hospital Manila.
“[The donation drive] came out spontaneously. We realized that we must contribute something concrete to the fight against Covid-19 so we thought of pooling our resources to purchase PPEs and other needed materials for our chosen referral hospital, Sta. Ana Hospital,” Asst. Prof. Alvin Ringgo Reyes, an EHS alumnus, told the Varsitarian.
“While our Thomasian doctors, nurses and allied health workers are in the frontline, we must be on their side to boost their capability and morale to contain the pandemic,” he added.
The donation drive was initiated by Reyes’s class 4Pilot, Class of 2003, and was later opened to the public.
Marketing sophomore Melvin Dave Jordan also initiated a donation drive to make 300 hazmats to be distributed to frontliners.
With the assistance of the CSC, Jordan was able to coordinate with tailors from Taytay, Rizal and Quezon City for the production of hazmats, to be distributed by the Office of the Vice President to various locations nationwide.
“I initiated it since I have a garments manufacturing and silkscreen printing business. Then I also found out that VP Leni (Vice President Leni Robredo) was looking for people in the fashion industry to make PPEs,” he told the Varsitarian in an online interview.
“Thomasians are very compassionate, na kahit pagka-graduate mo, there’s still this part of you na naiwan ng UST na kapag ganitong panahon, it’s part of our instinct to take action,” he said. with reports from Nuel Angelo D. Sabate
