Businessman sells face shields to purchase food for needy amid quarantine

TO HELP those affected by the enhanced community quarantine and the total lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a businessman from Cebu, together with other volunteers from the private sectors, started the Shields4Food initiative.

Jojo Vergara, owner of Balamban Liempo, said the said non-profit activity aims to address two major needs amid the current situation.

These include the need to produce faceshields for the frontliners and the need to provide food to the people who do not have the liberty to look for their own food supplies.

Vergara said they started making faceshields last March for his employees, friends who are doctors and to all other frontliners.

"I started making and went to my go-to friends and asked them for help and the help came in and we started making more faceshields and gave it to the frontliners," he said.

However, recently, he said he saw the need to address hunger among Cebuanos who are not only badly hit by the disease but also affected by its economic effects.

With this, Vergara said, he tried to provide food packs out of his own pocket.

This was before his wife gave him the idea of selling faceshields to generate funds for foodpacks, a two-pronged activity.

"From there, we are just at our first week into this, and we have given more than a hundred foodpacks already and distributed around 300 faceshields to frontliners," he said

They sell the faceshields at P40 each.

For every five faceshields sold at P200, they can already produce a food pack with three kilos of rice, sardines and three packs of noodles.

With the online platform, Vergara said he is hoping that more people will be inspired and encouraged to follow in their footsteps.

Anyone who is willing to support the cause may contact 0916 514 6144 or may extend their donations through their BPI account: 4743074705. (WBS)