Mobile phone users in the United States and Canada can now help Typhoon Haiyan victims in the Philippines by sending donations via airtime load to helpPH (help.ph), an initiative of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation (PDRF). The donations will help fund programs for relief and recovery in partnership with international organizations, Philippine NGOs, government agencies and private companies.

To contribute to helpPH, mobile phone subscribers in the US and Canada must key-in +63-999-7-000-000 (12-digits) as the beneficiary mobile number and then send their donation using the procedure of their mobile network operator. Donations can be as much as $10 per day.

For all mobile operators in the United States and Canada, subscribers may visit http://www.aryty.com/ to register an account. Using their own mobile phones, they should then send an SMS by typing SEND<space>011639997000000 to 13142279894. There will be an SMS notification on the successful load donation. These donations will be converted into funds that will be deposited in an account of PDRF in the Land Bank of the Philippines through a mobile money platform of Smart Communications that has been approved for this specific purpose by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Philippine Central Bank).

This fund-raising program will continue until December 31, 2013.