{"id":288968,"date":"2018-11-21T06:06:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=288968"},"modified":"2018-11-21T06:06:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T20:06:13","slug":"forever-grateful-to-tan-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/forever-grateful-to-tan-family\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Forever grateful to Tan family\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
TanHoldings Corp. president Jerry Tan, sixth from left, joins other officials of the company after committing to donate $1\u00a0million to the ongoing recovery efforts from Super Typhoon Yutu. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres was nearly speechless upon learning that TanHoldings Corp. and its charitable arm, the Tan Siu Lin Foundation, have pledged to donate $1 million for the ongoing relief and recovery efforts of the CNMI from Super Typhoon Yutu. The amount will be divided among several non-government organizations that are assisting the victims of the devastating storm.<\/p>\n

TanHoldings president Jerry Tan announced Monday that their family and their company\u2019s charitable arm had committed to give $300,000 to the Commonwealth Advocates for Recovery Efforts, and $200,000 each to the American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, and CNMI Mass Care. They would evaluate which organization would receive the remaining $300,000.<\/p>\n

Torres, who appeared overcome and slightly teary-eyed upon learning of the donation, said he is floored by the Tan family\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

[embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k8IErJY0cRo&width=500&height=350[\/embedyt]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have companies that donated $100,000 or $200,000, but this [$1 million] is beyond words,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, again thank you to the whole family, the people, and the company. They are [helping] the people who are greatly in need. \u2026Jerry, our people will be forever grateful for the Tan family.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that companies usually reach out to the community as part of their corporate social responsibility but the Tan family goes beyond that with its generous contribution. \u201cJerry can live anywhere in the world but he chose to be here on Saipan. He made the CNMI his home and you could see his love of our people here. On behalf of the people of the CNMI, thank you. I don\u2019t even know what to say. We\u2019ve been hit so many times in the last three years. This company and this family never fail to contribute to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torres said the beneficiary organizations would use the money for the people who need it most. \u201cEvery bottle and blanket goes a long way, and $1 million is going to go a long way. I know the Red Cross, CARE, and all the organizations would put that to the right people and the right homes who truly need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a long way to go. For the Red Cross, the NGOs, and the [Federal Emergency Management Agency], thank you for not giving up on us. Even after Typhoon Soudelor, it took us two years to rebuild and it will take us a couple of years to rebuild after Yutu.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I know one thing, aside from being resilient, we\u2019re going to build a stronger CNMI. On behalf of the CNMI, thank you and it is truly a blessing to be here in the CNMI. I am blessed to call this home and I know all of you are,\u201d Torres added.<\/p>\n

Updating the family<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tan said he witnessed the devastation of Yutu firsthand. Seeing the damage himself plus the numbers given by the government and the American Red Cross, he was able to present a clearer picture to his family about the CNMI\u2019s situation. He was in Hong Kong last Friday to talk to his father and the rest of the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CNMI is my home. I grew up in Guam and Saipan so I also had experienced typhoons. I was not here during Typhoon Soudelor but I was here during Yutu. The very next day, I drove down, parked my car, and walked into Chalan Kanoa. Just a couple of blocks away, I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes. So, from Day 1 we need a lot of help and we have the Red Cross, FEMA, and other organizations here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of my friends ask me to tell them what has happened and I feel so bad because the last few weeks, the words that I used is \u2018catastrophic,\u2019 \u2018massive,\u2019 and \u2018devastation\u2019. Words that we don\u2019t want to use but I have to use all of them, repeatedly in order to describe to our friends what happened to Saipan and Tinian.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that seeing the level of devastation was heartbreaking. \u201cSo, it was not difficult for me to ask my family and the foundation to help. Like I said, this is our home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tan said he flew to Hong Kong last Friday to meet his family. \u201cI flew to Hong Kong and gave my presentation to my dad. Just to let him know what happened. We also have a better understanding when the governor and Red Cross gave us numbers on the extent of the damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I asked my dad for $1 million, I thought I have to spend 30 minutes to convince him. It took him five seconds. He said \u2018do it\u2019. So, I am very happy. I left right away, before he changes his mind,\u201d added Tan in a lighthearted moment that drew laughs from the crowd that witnessed Monday\u2019s event at the Kanoa Resort\u2019s lobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me to stay for lunch. So, for $1 million I\u2019ll stay as long as he doesn\u2019t change his mind. I updated the family and they also gave their support. There are many good people here on the island. Everybody is doing their share and TanHoldings, we\u2019re doing our share. We\u2019re happy to see many of our partners and our community once again deal with the aftermath. In the end, we\u2019ll be okay because we\u2019re Marianas strong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres was nearly speechless upon learning that TanHoldings Corp. and its charitable…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":288983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[2459,26,338,67],"class_list":["post-288968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-red-cross","tag-cnmi","tag-hong-kong","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}