Hello Hive World! After almost 2 months of being offline due to the after effect of the super typhoon Odette and being on quarantine, I am happy to be able to share to you another memorable experience.
September of 2018 when Christmas was fast approaching, I decided to organize a gift giving program to the kids and students of Tagjaguimit Elementary School. Tagjaguimit is a mountain barangay that is part of Naga, a town located in Cebu Island.
I came to know about this mountain barangay when I visited the place for a short hiking and caving trip. Tagjaguimit is the home of the famous Lantawan cliff and Kasarya Cave that house some beautiful crystallites, stalagmites, and stalactites. Since this is not a travel blog, allow me to talk more about the outreach program.
This was the very first time that I tried to organize this kind of event and at first, it was difficult. I had a lot of things to consider such as funding, manpower, schedule, and the weather. The main factor where I was struggling was the funding and the manpower. Where would I get the money and the people?
I started tapping the active members of my group – Cebu Globetrotters for help and see if we can get enough money to fund the program and without any dismay, they responded to my request, and we were able to raise enough money to fund the event and enough people to volunteer. I also reach out to the local chief of the Barangay and see if they can help arrange the kids to be present during the scheduled event.
On the day and as we arrive at the site, we were all smiles seeing the kids all excited to receive new sets of school supplies.
Before we started giving them gifts, we ask them if they are up for some game and without hesitation they answered yes. This time, we also get to play with them and bring out the kid of us. It was all fun and lively until we started giving them their new school supplies.
The emotions start pouring and some the kids started crying as they receive their envelope full of notebooks, papers, crayons, pencils, and pens, etc. Some of the group members even cried watching how happy and thankful they are as they say thank you receiving their gifts.
Sometimes it doesn’t have to be fancy and expensive, it just have mean something. Some of the kid’s family during that time were greatly affected by the landslide and we were lucky enough to be able to give back and at least help a little.
As the event continue, I started to feel a little emotional. I can’t quite scratch the feeling thinking how small the program is, but the impact is so big, big enough to say that even the parents onsite started approaching the group members just to say thank you. Thank you! The word the keep us going and wanted to do more.
Life is unfair. Some live in luxury, some live comfortably while some lives are just hard enough. As a citizen let us all try to balance and help whenever we can, whenever we are able to.
Thank you once again for taking the time to read my post. Until my next blog. See you guys and be safe!
