By Nel Andrade
TAYTAY, Rizal- A young village leader in this town is leading a fund-raising drive for his co-villagers for the purchase of bicycles which will be given to selected recipients in this barangay.
Barangay Kagawad Tobit Cruz, of Sta. Ana in this town, said his Bike To Work Donation Program is targeting to raise P100,000 for the project that aims to give a bicycle each to at least 20 intended beneficiaries in his village.
As of June 15 three beneficiaries have received their bicycles. One of them was Chelsea Rose Cutamora, 24, a single mother who works in Pasig City who was only able to report for work by borrowing a bike from her neighbor when general community quarantine (GCQ) was imposed on the province recently.
Cruz also handed over a bicycle to John Benson Trucilla, a 23-year old truck helper who walks from his house to Cainta everyday. His neighbors were the ones who nominated him to the program after learning of his daily sacrifices for his family.
Another recipient of the Bike To Work Program was Bienvenido Artita Jr., an on-call house painter and construction worker who walks to Parang in Marikina City everyday just to work.
The donation program hopes to gather more donations to help workers who are forced by the situation to either walk or commute by any available means of transportation just to report for work, as messages of request continue to pour in on Cruz's social media page.
Aside from cash donations, Cruz's group also accepts donations of pre-owned bikes.
The young village official has included a link to a transparency portal in his social media account where the details of the donation are shown, including the names of the donors.
He has also been regularly updating the status of the bike donation drive on his Facebook account.