JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There are about 16,000 Filipinos in the Jacksonville area and they all want to help victims of last week's devastating typhoon.
Hundreds gathered Friday night at a special fundraiser at the Maharlika Hall and Sports Grill on Beach Boulevard.
"We are here to raise support for the living victims," said Doreen Flippin, who helped organize the event. "It's going to take a long time. The recovery, we have asked people to bring money, non-perishable goods. So that is the purpose of this evening."
A lot of the crowd immigrated to Jacksonville from the Philippines. They told Channel 4 Friday night that it's been especially hard seeing the images of the destruction.
"It's hard to have to see that, and say it doesn't affect me," said Flippin. "It does and it did, so this is another way of showing people that we care of bonding together as a community."
Tess Relampagos owns a company called Micro-Ant, which is matching all the donations at Friday night's fundraiser. Channel 4 asked her if this storm was anything close to what Filipinos are used to.
"We've never had a typhoon signal number 5," said Relampagos. "If there is a typhoon signal number 3, people go hide in schools, hide in churches and they'll be safe. This is by far the worst ever."