SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Keesa Ocampo was shivering inside her home in this typically benign city last week when her thoughts literally flew out the window:  What about those without roofs over their heads?

A bitter cold snap had plunged Northern California fall temperatures to freezing, pushing the homeless to already-crowded shelters and homeowners deep beneath layers of comforters.  Which gave Ocampo, 27, an idea.  If homeowners can’t offer rooms to those in need, they can certainly give warmth through blankets, jackets, and socks.

“That’s what we’re collecting at 20 drop-off centers throughout the Bay Area for distribution at noon, Dec. 20,” said Ocampo, community relations officer with ABS-CBNI and “firestarter” of a project she chairs with kindred spirits composed of public officials and private philanthropists.  The “host committee” is a diverse group that includes Filipino Americans Genevieve Jopanda and Melissa Apuya. 

They have no formal name for themselves, but they launched a website for this year’s  humanitarian efforts. 

Through bayareabenefit.org, the community advocates mounted what Ocampo believes was the largest fund raiser for Typhoon Ondoy relief.  They also collected toys and clothes for the tsunami victims in Samoa.  They hope to end the year with a blizzard of donated blankets, jackets and socks for adult and youth homeless clients of Glide Memorial United Methodist, Berkeley Food & Housing Project, YEAH Youth Engagement, Advocacy and Housing of Berkeley, and Covenant House California.

Ken Kamisugi, communications director for the Equal Justice Society and board member of the Japantown Foundation and Nichi Bei Foundation, manages the website.

Ocampo’s employer is among the drop-off centers.  

Ocampo works with the ABS-CBNI Foundation, nonprofit component of the world office of the largest communications network in Asia.  The blanket effort and her inclination to help, however, are personal. 

Her aunts, she told ‘Philippine News,’ take credit for her “compassion gene.”  She looks up to her father, Manila City Council member Pablo Ocampo, who modeled community service to his California-born, Manila-bred daughter.  

“My humanitarian work is inspired by the work of my father who is a kind-hearted and compassionate politician,” she confided.

Being born to privilege did not shield Ocampo from life on the other side. 

Educated at Assumption and De La Salle where she graduated with honors in pre-med, she returned to her birthplace in the summer of 2006 to care for her cancer-stricken grandparents. 

Last year she plunged into the presidential campaign to elect Barack Obama.  The single career woman finds plenty of time to support her favorite causes:  Citizen Hope, Young Filipino Professionals Association, Mahal Foundation, Asian Pacific Fund, and the San Francisco-Manila Sister City Committee.

When she was nine, she awoke to the footsteps of her mother, whom she espied busy beneath the Christmas tree.  Her eyes now wider, she identifies Santa Claus as “that spark of kindness and generosity within ourselves.”

“Every act of kindness and thoughtfulness, no matter how small, makes a huge difference in people’s lives,” she said.   She hopes to discover hundreds of Santas in the course of her group’s winter effort.

Donations do not have to be brand-new “so long as there are no holes and provide sufficient warmth,” said Ocampo, who may just part with one of her beloved fleece ponchos and legwarmers for those who have none.

In a perfect world, she dreams of a Christmas gift in the form of jobs, prison system reform, abolition of the death penalty in California, lawful gay marriage, health care reform and Asian visibility in politics, business and altruism.   Otherwise she’d be grateful for a bottle of perfume and a new set of tires for her obviously busy car.