In addition to spearheading feeding projects, Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF) also supports local endeavors to bring food access to marginalized communities. These include community kitchens, which are essential to providing food for communities during catastrophes like the pandemic, or natural calamities.

This is the story of how Nanay Nini of the Climb Against Cancer (CAC) Munting Kusina provided food for a community in Montalban, Rizal during the pandemic, and continues to make a difference in the lives of the people there. Among the residents is 44-year-old karinderya owner Myra Oligan.

After the storm

Myra’s community is nestled among mountains like Parawagan, Hapunang Banoi, Pamitinan, and Binacayan, and the nearby Wawa River. The area is a known hiking and outdoor adventure spot, with many of the community’s inhabitants acting as guides for hikers and foreign tourists.

The local tourist industry came to a standstill when the lockdown was implemented. Myra, who has been running her karinderya for almost 10 years with her husband’s help, talked about how the community was dependent on tourists.

“Sa lugar po namin ang inaasahan lang po namin mga dayuhan. Nung nagka-lockdown wala na po kaming hanapbuhay (In our area, we really depend on tourists. When the lockdown happened, we lost our livelihood),” she said. During this period, the tour guides turned to other sources of income like selling coal. In order to have food, some turned to planting vegetables. Myra and her family were fortunate that her oldest son had continuing employment with the barangay, but it was difficult getting by.

The situation was made worse when Typhoon Ulysses struck in November of 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The flood reached the roof of Myra’s home, which also houses their karinderya. Muddy water swept into the compound that houses not just Myra’s family, but the families of her six siblings. They lost a lot of their belongings, and Myra admits that it was a dark period for them.

“Yun po yung akala namin wala na po talaga kaming kinabukasan (That was the point when we thought we would no longer have a future),” she says. But the flood waters had not yet receded when Nanay Nini’s group came in with relief goods.

“Kinabukasan, sobrang pasalamat po ako sa Panginoon dahil sina Nanay Nini ang unang-unang nakita ng mata ko dito sa aming lugar nun, na nagdala sa amin ng pagkain (The next day, I was so thankful to God because it was Nanay Nini who my eyes first saw, coming into our area bringing food).”

Building community kitchens

Nini Andrada-Sacro and her group had long provided food for the mountain community during outreaches. She would use the space behind Myra’s karinderya as a kitchen from which they could cook food to hand out to the local population. Through Nini’s support over the years, Myra’s karinderya has gone from being a bamboo wood structure to one made of hollow blocks.

In addition to coming in to deliver relief goods and provide food in the aftermath of Typhoon Ulysses, Nini would continue coming back throughout the pandemic to serve food out of the community kitchen behind Myra’s karinderya.

But Nini and her group do not just serve Myra’s community. The CAC Munting Kusina came about due to the need to provide various groups with food during the pandemic. When the pandemic struck, Nini received requests for help in feeding ICU nurses at the Philippine Heart Center. With her efforts going viral on social media, Nini received numerous donations of vegetables, rice, eggs, and chicken. 

She would go on to deliver food to medical frontliners, locally stranded individuals, essential workers, and street dwellers. In addition to the community kitchen in Rizal, two more kitchens would be established in San Andres, Manila, and in Caloocan. 

In Myra’s community, Nini would bring and cook meals from donations from JGF, including chicken and meat balls. 

“We operate most days as long as there is something to cook,” she said. “Fortunately, we have JGF and some generous friends who provide us with meat, rice, and condiments so we can continue with our work.”

Nini makes it a point to offer communities food that both looks and tastes good. “As a cook and a mother, I always see to it that we distribute the food while it is still warm. And no matter how busy and exhausted we are, the food should be beautifully plated. No matter how simple the dish, we want our beneficiaries to feel that we prepared the food with love and care.”

When asked why Myra continues to offer the space behind her karinderya for the community kitchen, she says that “Kasi marami naman po talagang natutuwa at natutulungan nila (It’s because they are able to help and make a lot of people happy).” The children in particular were happy to try some of Jollibee’s famous chicken, she adds.

Looking forward

While the pandemic restrictions have been eased, there is much still to do in Myra’s community. The tourists have slowly begun to trickle back, but it will be a while until their community will be able to see similar numbers before the pandemic. Nini adds that while frontliners are less likely to need meals, communities continue to suffer the aftermath of lockdown.

“With the communities that we serve, the lines [for the community kitchens] are still long and even growing. As we’ve gathered, some of them were not able to go back to work even with the new normal.”

For Myra, although the last two years have brought hardship, it has also brought inspiration. “Sana po dumating din yung araw na maging tulad ako nila, na maka-ipon ako ng pera na pagtanda ko hindi na ako maghahanapbuhay, tutulong nalang din ako sa iba, makapagluto po ako, magpapakain. Yun ang pangarap ko (Hopefully a day will come when I can be like them, when I’m older and have saved money, and no longer need to work. Then, I will be able to help others by cooking and feeding them. This is my dream).”