On the plaza in front of the Fongshan City Administrative Office where relief supplies for victims of Typhoon Morakot were stacked, a girl was reading a book as she waited for the next convoy carrying donated goods to arrive.
Hung Fang-ying, who graduated last year with a degree in information management from Fooyin University, was there to help unload the goods and carry them into the office — a temporary distribution hub opened by Taiwan’s Red Cross Society in Kaohsiung County for neighboring villages and townships.
It was a job she volunteered to do every day, beginning soon after the typhoon devastated southern Taiwan earlier last month, but it was a job that was surprisingly difficult to find.
“I contacted several places to work as a volunteer, but so many people were willing to help that the Fongshan City Administrative Office was the only place where there was an opening,” Hung said.
“I didn’t have money to make a donation, but I was willing to help,” she said. “I was deeply moved to see so many people wholeheartedly helping with the relief work, including elementary school kids.”
From the time the typhoon hit until Aug. 20, when the volunteer operation ended, Hung was one of at least 80 people who helped at the Fongshan (鳳山) office every afternoon.
As Hung’s difficulty in finding a way to help attests, the outpouring of sympathy from private citizens to the plight of the disaster victims was widespread.
More than NT$15 billion (US$457 million) has been donated to help relief and recovery efforts, and tens of thousands people have volunteered their time.
Hung said that while many of those helping in Fongshan were strangers who found out about the opportunity on the Internet, they all shared the same desire — wanting to help.
Private relief efforts, however, have also cast a spotlight on the importance and wide reach of local nonprofit groups in disaster relief efforts, especially in contrast to the efforts of central and local governments, which were criticized as being disorganized and slow.
In Fongshan, for instance, 400 volunteers, including Hung, gathered every day to help with tasks organized by personnel from the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China.
The local Red Cross, founded 105 years ago, now has branches in each city and county, making it the largest private nonprofit in Taiwan.
After the massive earthquake that hit central Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999 — the worst temblor to hit the country in a century — the Red Cross set up disaster prevention centers in almost every locality to train volunteer rescuers and workers, and those centers have played active roles since the typhoon hit.
Tsai Ruei-yu, a 74-year-old housewife and a Red Cross member who serves as chief of the Jenwu community service team in Kaohsiung County, said most of the volunteers, regardless of their age, fully devoted their time and energy to the service.
As materials donated by citizens from across Taiwan poured into the office, volunteer workers seldom had time to rest.
“Carrying bottled water is not easy, and many of them did the job from morning to night,” Tsai said.
“The whole nation was shocked by the damage done by the typhoon and at the suffering of the typhoon victims, leading many young adults, including white-collar office workers and college students, to flock here to offer help voluntarily,” she said.
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