Community Corner
Evanston 2nd-Grader Sells Hot Chocolate For Typhoon Victims
Stop by the playground at Washington Elementary School this Friday to pick up hot chocolate and help support families affected by Typhoon Haiyan.
One Evanston second grader is doing his best to help families affected by Typhoon Haiyan in his grandparents' hometown of Ormoc, Phillipines.
Evan will be selling hot chocolate by the first and second grade playground at Washington Elementary School Friday afternoon, with all proceeds going to the distribution of relief goods. The typhoon affected at least 11.8 million people and left 4,460 people dead and 921,200 displaced across the Philippines, according to the United Nations.
"We came up with the idea when I saw a picture on the internet of two girls here in the US, probably from the west coast, with a lemonade stand that had a sign 'Help Typhoon Families,'" says his mother, Geraldine Martinez Benz. "We thought we could do the same but with hot chocolate instead because of Evanston's cold weather."
Benz is also raising funds online for her hometown of Ormoc City, through a Go Fund Me account.
"A friend's mother described the devastation as if an atomic bomb had just exploded," Benz wrote on her Go Fund Me page. "While my family survived and is slowly working to recover, the same cannot be said for thousands of others."
Her parents are physically fine, according to Benz, although there is a big hole in one of the bedrooms in their home--minor damage compared to other houses in Ormoc.
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She will be raising funds through Nov. 26, and all proceeds will go to the Help For Ormoc group, based in the Philippines. While the group operates from a town two hours away from Ormoc, it is organized by people who grew up in Ormoc and includes some volunteers who lost their homes, according to Benz."As a person who has grown up in Ormoc City and has called it her home for 30 years I felt I had to do something, even if it meant asking complete strangers for help," Benz wrote. "It doesn't have to be much; your $5 donation can buy a family of four two meals to get them through until the situation can be stabilized."
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