Three weeks ago we gave food packs to more than 200 families including those of our PNA scholars. The week after we gave food packs to the same 200 families plus one hundred more. Last week, the crisis became worse, more and more people were becoming more and more hungry. We responded to this situation by starting to reach out to a far greater number of people.
Today, in order to reach more people more quickly, we had three distribution points instead of one. At the PNA Center, we continued giving out as we have been giving in the past, but we also used the front entrance to give and we also used our other building. In addition, this afternoon we took 120 food packs with rice, cans squash and monggo beans to a small evangelical church in Payatas and gave them out from there in partnership with the pastor to a list of people identified by the Purok leader and the Church.
More exact figures can wait but we have now given 4kg of rice to more than 2,000 families. In addition we have given food packs which included at least 4kg of rice to around 700 families. I expect that in the next few days we will have given rice to more than 3,000 families. I hope that in the next week we will give food packs (which include rice) to at least 300 to 1000 more families. I would hope that we will have given food to at least three to four thousand families by the end of next week. We have not yet made the decision of whether we will then increase the numbers of families we have fed by giving to more families or whether we will concentrate on simply try to feed again the thousands of families that we have already fed.
During this time we are continuing to take special care of the families of our scholars and some other families for whom we in PNA have a more specific responsibility. In this respect, I should add that we have some donors who are trying to raise money to sustain a smaller number of families over a longer period. They are trying to raise money for a group of around 300 families on a longer term basis, for relief now, and then for rehabilitation and development afterwards.