EY’s home-cooked lunches raise urgent funds for the Philippines

Fundraisers at EY in the Channel Islands have been working hard to raise funds for people affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The disaster in November 2013, caused countless deaths and forced thousands of families from their homes.

From Friday 15^th November to Friday 22^nd December, volunteers helped to run soup kitchens at their offices in St Peter Port and St Helier, raising money to buy “Shelter Boxes”, which cost as much as £590 each to prepare. The boxes have been designed to hold items that are needed by families to survive after they lost practically everything in the storm.

The boxes contain equipment such as relief tents which withstand extreme temperatures and weather conditions, insulated ground sheets, blankets, wood, stoves, and even small gifts for children, amongst other emergency equipment.

Staff from both the Jersey and Guernsey EY offices were involved in the fundraising, which was organised by their EY colleagues Zoe Warlow and Lorie del Rosario in Guernsey, and Raul Ramos in Jersey. The work was coordinated with the charity, Bridge2Philippines (B2P), and the EY team worked closely with Sarah Griffith of B2P to make the project a success.

The EY soup kitchen, was run by volunteers who brought in one main course and one dessert every day during the fundraising period. People were able to buy the food for a minimum donation of £3 for a main course and £1.50 for a dessert.

“Raul and I are both from the Philippines and we wanted to contribute to the disaster recovery in any way we could,” said Lorie del Rosario, Assurance Manager at EY. “We teamed up with Zoe, who also wanted to raise funds, to create the soup kitchen. EY matched our fundraising sum giving us a total raised of £2,800.00, which will help people survive the coming months. We are so pleased with everyone’s efforts and the generosity shown by so many people who contributed either their time or their money, very often both, to help make a difference to people struggling to survive after the disaster.”

“We would like to thank everyone who donated their money to the soup kitchen because it truly is going to make an enormous difference to many people,” said Sarah Griffith of Bridge2Philippines. “We are absolutely delighted with the response and every penny raised will be used to improve the lives of those suffering after the Typhoon.”