"We have Php 100,000 ($2,000) to spend for our Christmas Party", exclaimed our president.
After contemplating how we'd manage to organize a Christmas Party for at least 50 people during the first Christmas since COVID broke out, we gave up. We were still in the middle of a pandemic; although restrictions were less strict by that time, most of the hotels catered to a limited number of guests. The rest of the officers of our batch thought about other ways to celebrate Christmas uniquely. That’s when I suggested allocating the entire $2,000 for donations. When all officers agreed to donate our Christmas budget, the next big question is where and how? I suggested two options: donating canned goods to the victims of a recent typhoon in Cagayan Valley or donating school supplies (printers and bond papers) to elementary schools in far-flung areas of Cebu and neighboring Provinces.
I’ve been only to a limited number of mountain barangays in Cebu during outreach programs at work and with other organizations I’m affiliated with but these days, looking for contacts isn’t a big deal at all. I posted on Facebook asking friends to connect me with teachers/principals of schools in mountainous communities in Cebu and in less than an hour, my job was done! That’s the power of social media only if you harness it for the better. The teachers and principals messaged me. I started assessing if they were qualified or not. As much as we’d want to give to everyone who reached out to us, $2,000 is not a huge amount if you buy quality printers. Of course, we didn't want to donate cheap printers that would only end up damaged before the school year ends. I narrowed down the donatee into 5 schools, 1 in Boljoon, 1 in Oslob, 1 in Dalaguete, 1 in Tuburan and 1 in Negros Occidental. Just to give everyone an idea, printers and bondpapers were two of the most important supplies public elementary schools needed when learning became modular. They'd print tons of modules and distribute them house to house. Imagine the hardwork teachers had to put in during the onset of the pandemic. They're heroes indeed! But local government provided limited printers to schools; I'd even hear from my teacher friends that they'd use their own money to buy inks and bond papers. Selfless as always. Although what we might have donated couldn't solve all their problems, at least it alleviated a portion of them.
Our president ordered the items himself and by February we were able to deliver the donations to each school. One of our batchmates volunteered to drive; it was a great thing that he used his pick-up because I didn’t expect the road to the schools to be bumpy. The school representatives who were there to receive the items were kind and thoughtful; some prepared snacks for us including fresh coconut (buko) juice, some bought local delicacies to give to us; some gave us fresh produce from their farms. The back of the car was filled with a lot of items when we went back home that day.
