By Michaela Senkiw, steinbachonline.com
Photo submitted by Edwin Sonsona
A local Filipino man is volunteering in his home country with the help of his employer here in Canada. HyLife is showing support for the Filipino community here in Manitoba but also overseas.
Earlier this month, the Philippines was hit with a deadly and destructive earthquake. Local Filipino organizations and groups have set up bank accounts where people can make donations for disaster relief. Before the quake hit, Edwin Sonsona was already planning a trip back to his home country to visit family. The devastation surrounding the community where he grew up created a new opportunity for him on his trip. Sonsona decided that before he left that he would dedicate part of his holiday to volunteer work in some of the areas that were hit the hardest.
Before he left Sonsona got the news that the company he works for, HyLife of La Broquerie would be donating $10,000 to disaster relief in the Philippines. Now Sonsona’s volunteer efforts would also be liaison work for that donation.
HyLife President Don Janzen says making a donation of this proportion was an easy decision for the board of directors at HyLife. He estimates that they employ nearly 800 Filipinos between their two locations of La Broquerie and Neepawa. Janzen says this particular catastrophe was important for them to donate to.
“Of course you want to support all catastrophes like this. Whether the people work for you or not but because so many of them work for us it brings it a little closer to home”.
HyLife made the donation to Couples for Christ, which is a Catholic charity that they have worked with in the past. Janzen says he even made a call to their head office in Toronto to make sure that Sonsona will be able to work with their employees overseas in distributing the donation.
Sonsona is proud and excited to be able to represent his new home country of Canada and his employer overseas while he volunteers with Couples for Christ.
