Free porridge on weekends at YMCA

CEBU, Philippines - Rice porridge will be given for free to the “poor and hungry” at the Young Men’s Christian Association along Jones Avenue every weekend of the year starting July 18.

The feeding program is organized by civic groups, including YMCA of Cebu, the Rotary Club of Talisay-Cebu, the Mount Moriah Lodge No. 252 of Free and Accepted Masons, the Cebu Queen City Lions Club, the V Max Owners Group and Y’s Mens Club and Omnilogy.

Lawyer Paul Alcazaren, one of the organizers of this year-round event, said the “Lugaw Init, Libre sa YMCA” Project or LILY Project will be open to all particularly the needy regardless of age, race, color and religious or political affiliations.

The porridge itself is named LILY.

“We will be doing this, as we have been doing already, to feed the hungry not just in a one-shot deal but all throughout the year,” Alcazaren said, adding that the feeding program is patterned after soup kitchens from around the world. 

He said LILY is a sanitary food complete and balanced nutrition-wise, as determined by licensed nutritionists coming from the ranks of the club members, professionals, students and civil society.

Parolita Mission, nutrition program coordinator of the National Nutrition Council in Region VII, commended the program, saying it will complement the government’s Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program.

“I am thanking them for thinking about nutrition,” Mission said.

A component of the hunger mitigation program is the giving of a kilo of rice a day to each student in exchange of their attendance to school.

The National Food Authority has, so far, supplied a total of 5.1 million bags of rice worth P5.2 billion for the Food for School Program in the last five years in support of the government’s drive against malnutrition, which is seen to benefit some 3 million school children nationwide.

Just like the FSP, Alcazaren is hopeful that their own program will be adopted by other civic groups or organizations in order to help the poor and the hungry. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/JMO (THE FREEMAN)