Books to Bohol
Every year, CDA sends a large box full of children’s books to the island province of Bohol in the southern Philippines. These are distributed by our local partners on the island and shared among many families. At CDA we believe that encouraging reading in young children is crucial to their later educational development, especially in an era when children have too much exposure to screen devices.
Typhoon Rai Odette Relief
On December 16, 2021, Typhoon Rai (Odette) slammed into eastern Visayas with 175 mph winds and cut a swath of destruction across the region for the next two days. One of the hardest hit provinces, Bohol, is a popular tourist destination due to its primeval forests, rivers, geological formations and endangered wildlife. It is also home to the hard-working, family-oriented Boholano-Visayan people, many of whose homes were reduced to heaps of rubble and twisted metal by the typhoon. Luckier families whose houses survived sheltered those who were less fortunate.
After the typhoon struck, CDA responded immediately, raising thousands of dollars on Facebook to help several dozen households in central Bohol. Our local partners there organized quickly to distribute food, drinking water and fuel to their impacted neighbors. Knowing it would take take the provincial government at least a month to restore the power grid, we were also able to help some families buy small generators.
One hundred percent of the money paid out to us by Facebook went directly to aid families in Bohol. There were no administrative expenditures and everyone volunteered their time.
