TACLOBAN CITY- The Alpha Phi Omega South Eastern Visayas Administrative Region handed over last weekend a cash donation of P150,000 to the officials of the Sto. Niño SPED Center (SNSC) in a simple ceremony held during the school year-end conference of the school’s general parents-teachers association. The SNSC, a prime institution of quality education in the region, was among the hundreds of public schools that were severely ruined by the storm surges and tornado-like winds generated by supertyphoon Yolanda that devastated the entire Tacloban November 8 of last year. Among the facilities and buildings of the SNSC that were devastated by the supertyphoon were those belonging to the special education classes. The destruction, although affected significantly the holding of regular classes especially in the SPED program, did not badge the faculty from delivering the quality education that the pupils need. The SNSC administration and faculty endeavored to bring back the academic ambience to normalcy in January this year. The SNSC SPED program catered to the basic education needs of physically impaired and later, as pipelined, to the mentally or psychologically impaired. The financial assistance of APO to SNSC was the proceeds of the Race and Shine Marathon and Fun Run that the APO-SEVAR organized in April this year. APO, an international service fraternity and sorority, had donated learning supplies in December last year to schools affected by Yolanda, including SNSC. Jaro Municipal Trial Court Judge Cielo Velasquez-Martinez, a key officer of APO-SEVAR, stated that the donation was the group’s affirmation in reaching out not just to the members but to the community as well. “We deem it our social responsibility to help. We consider it a great privilege for us to assist the school in the renovation and rehabilitation efforts,” she said. Ledwina Eva Teston, an APO SEVAR member and SNSC SPED teacher, expressed gratitude to the SNSC community and all other individuals for the full support extended leading to the success of the Fun Run. She likewise expressed her thanks SNSC Principal Delilah De Los Santos for the great confidence reposed to the APO on this project. Teston underscored the need to help primarily the SNSC pupils with “special needs” and later the entire school on other concerns where the cash donation could ably ease the burden. This pursuit is the cornerstone on which APO moored its humanitarian assistance following the supertyphoon that killed more than 6,000 people and destroyed properties. De Los Santos and the GPTA officers extended mutual appreciation to the effort of the APO-SEVAR for the substantial contribution it is giving to the rehabilitation and build back attempts of the SNSC. (EILEEN NAZARENO-BALLESTEROS)
