Businessmirror A social enterprise in time of Covid-19

ON our second Sunday of community quarantine in Butuan City, a priest in an online mass said, “This is the best time to find a purpose in life. If you are good at cooking, you can provide food for the frontliners. If your talent is to sew, make face masks.” in this war against Covid-19. By helping them, we have a fighting chance to triumph against this virus. We are sad that the number of doctors and nurses is dwindling day by day. The frontliners need all the help they can get to protect themselves. We believe that once they have fallen, the rest of the infantry collapses with them.

Charity in the time of Covid-19

AN initiative of three young female entrepreneurs in Butuan inspired us to go into face mask making for frontliners. We also collaborated with an association of hotel and restaurant owners in providing them meals.

As the pandemic worsens, we thought of organizing a project for sewing personal productive equipment (PPE) like laboratory gowns and coveralls to give more protection to our doctors and nurses.

We decided to put to good use my dad’s and One Closet’s wide span of network of contacts to raise fund for PPE production in Butuan. We approached everyone we could think of to ask donations from.

One group of Butuanons overseas gave P40,000, while a group of local artists donated artworks which generated P30,000 in sales. With funds from generous donors, we bought fabric and other materials needed for PPE production and gave these to volunteer partners and paid seamstresses.

We have distributed close to 2,000 meters of taffeta fabric for PPE coveralls for Butuan. Two major partner groups got the bulk of our fabric: Department of Trade and Industryagusan del Norte and its employees’ cooperative, and the Association of Technical and Vocational Schools of Butuan City and Agusan del Norte and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority of Agusan del Norte. We expect to produce more than 750 PPE suits, or coveralls.

Together with our donors and partners, we have donated about 200 coveralls and 660 medical-grade face shields to government hospitals Butuan City Medical Center and Agusan del Norte Provincial Hospital.

Because Luzon is in a much more dire state, we thought of helping the front liners there as well. Once more, we put to good use my dad’s and One Closet’s network of donors and fashion designers.

My dad’s friend, Lorenzo “Renzo” Villalon, helped find fabric suppliers, while dad’s former colleague in the Ayala group of companies, Maria Angelica “Gigi” Rapadas, sourced funds to buy fabric. As we started distributing the rolls of fabric to volunteer fashion designers and seamstresses, other friends of dad donated money to buy more fabric that produced PPE laboratory gowns and coveralls and donated to hospitals in Metro Manila and a few provinces in Luzon.

We have distributed more than 15,000 meters of fabric in Luzon. The bulk of the fabric went to designers in Metro Manila and some to designers in Pangasinan, Laguna and Cavite. Soon we will start production in Bicol. We are truly grateful to all the designers who help us like Rajo Laurel, Delby Bragais, Julius Tarog, Cecilio Abad, Marlon Victa and Manny Marquez. Through Commissioner Sandy Montano of the Philippine Commission on Women, we get to work with a group of seamstresses.

Lessons learned NOTWITHSTANDING its many problems and challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic has many a lesson to teach us. Due to the temporarily closure of our One Closet shop, we have turned to purely charity work in this time of crisis. Certainly, there is no ounce of profit but it’s okay because we get to live a life mission.

Even as a mere teenager, there are things that I can do to help like cutting fabric for face masks or helping my mom prepare meals for the frontliners. Network plays a vital role in our lives these days. My dad’s good relationship with designers and other contacts is a big help in our PPE making project. It is also important that we show our sincerity or authenticity as a social enterprise. We may not feel comfortable in posting on Facebook what we do, but it is necessary so that our donors know where their money goes to as well as to thank our partners and volunteers.

Money is not everything. In a time with so much uncertainty and volatility, it’s wiser to use it for something good. Money is important to buy the needs of our family but it’s more important to share our money and talent in helping the frontliners.

This Covid-19 crisis might take much longer. We are faced with many challenges in our project such as lack of supply of raw materials and drying up of funds, thus we need to be innovative in our solutions. For example, we turned to using neoprene fabric when garter for cotton face mask was hard to find.

We need to persevere. We must be patient in interacting with our donors, volunteers and other partners.

This Covid-19 pandemic has taught us to simplify our lives and to care for each other. When all this is over, hopefully we don’t revert to our old ways of living. Hopefully after this, people will be kinder. And hopefully there will be more enterprises that don’t only have profit in mind.

Isabela Blancas is the founder of the Butuan City-based One Closet shop.