ST. PAUL – Buenaventura Ang quietly arranged clothes – jackets, sweaters, and more – at the Centennial Senior Citizen Club the early morning of Dec. 1. It took him quite some time, but finally, it was all done.
The hall looked like a marketplace. Ang had been collecting the items, many of them winter clothing – from members of the community. He aims to give them to those “who need them the most.”
Anybody could come. “It’s all free,” says Ang.
This is not the first time he has tackled such a bold initiative. In 2016, during the Fort McMurray wildfire, where he still works as a miner, he collected goods and necessities and brought them to victims of the fire. Since then, he has not stopped giving.
When asked why he does it, even going as far as using his own money to rent a hall at the Centennial Senior Citizen Club, he says he is just fortunate and blessed in so many ways.
“I’m not a millionaire nor am I a rich person, but God blessed me in other ways.”
Many people are not as fortunate, Ang says. “Especially nowadays… clothes are so expensive.” He knows his efforts “will be a big help to people who may not be able to afford them.”
Ang looked at all the neatly placed winter clothes. “They’re all still in very good condition,” he says with a smile, adding, it wouldn’t have been possible without the community coming together.
“The good thing is that there’s people here in our Town of St. Paul that are willing to give,” says Ang, as he offers thanks to those who helped out.
Finally, as the clock hit 9 a.m., people started trickling in. Throughout the day, people from the town and the surrounding communities stopped by to take whatever they needed.
Ang assures everyone who donated that their kindness would not be for naught. He already had a plan to bring the excess clothes that had not been picked up to the Hope Mission in Edmonton, where they would then be distributed in downtown Edmonton to people in need.
Ang is known in St. Paul’s Filipino community for his volunteer work, such as his past efforts with bottle drives and helping collect essential goods for people back in the Philippines – a country frequently hit by typhoons – often displacing and affecting people.