WFWP serves local community through food drive in Houston, Texas

Editor’s note: In December 2019, WFWP Houston Representative Wendy Dayagon initiated a new service project: a canned food drive for a local women’s shelter. She hopes it will become a regular activity for the recently established WFWP chapter as a means of serving and connecting to the local community. 

We concluded 2019 in Houston with a big heart. With three weeks’ notice, I announced that WFWP Houston was launching its first canned goods drive in an effort to serve the local community with a focus on some of the most vulnerable members of our society: homeless women and children escaping domestic abuse. 

The beneficiary was the Houston Area Women’s Center, the largest domestic violence shelter in the city. For 42 years, this women’s center has been sheltering vulnerable women and offering much-needed support services, and WFWP is proud to support such a valuable organization.

Through the help of my Filipino friends and organizations, we collected about 200 assorted cans of food, 20 pounds of rice, cups of noodles, dried beans, pasta and other dry food ingredients for cakes and cupcakes in a box. The food was then offered to the women’s center on December 16th as an early Christmas present.

 Thank you to all those who participated in this food drive and contributed to its success, including the Houston Bayanihan Group with my friend Faith Cuenca, and the Faces Group led by Mylene Hunter.

 This was just our first step to learn and help each other grow through service and we hope to keep it going in the new year.