An early Christmas

Like last year, and the eight years before that, our office organized the Lights for Hope Christmas outreach party for young children in the poor communities and public schools that various organizations in the Ateneo de Manila University are involved with. This year, though, we also opened the event to the children of university employees who suffered from typhoon Ketsana (known as Ondoy locally). Last Saturday, about one thousand children spent the afternoon in a large field in the university. There was a program with games and prizes, and Jollibee himself (his fastfood chain provided the kids' afternoon snack) dancing for the kids. He is probably the most famous and best-loved animal mascot in the country and up close, it's easy to understand why—he has the cutest shy smile! He's a pretty good dancer too.



For those who didn't care for dancing or parlor games, there were two large inflatable slides. The college students who volunteered to help did a fantastic job of keeping the waiting lines orderly.



Canon Philippines provided a photo booth. Pose with the Canon snowman and get a free print, a souvenir of the afternoon. Filipinos are usually shy about asking strangers anything and people probably thought this was just a display booth, so two officemates and I got things going by being the first to get our picture taken. We posed together but we each got a copy. And, no, I'm not posting that photo here. No way.



Instead of just our regular one goody bag, all the children went home with four bags. Our blue tote bag had biscuits and other snack foods, a rubber ball and slippers. The Ateneo High School Class of 1967 provided a knapsack full of school supplies, including a Tagalog-English pocket dictionary. And ABS-CBN, one of the largest media companies in the Philippines which was also one of the largest relief operations centers during the typhoon, provided two bags of relief goods: rice and canned goods, and clothes. The Ateneo High School and Grade School basketball teams helped us distribute all the bags, help that was much appreciated because just before distribution I thought we didn't have enough hands. The high school boys even helped the smaller ones carry all their 'loot' back to their picnic area.



None of these would have been possible without the generosity and hard work of so many people, so indulge me as I thank others not mentioned above: all the alumni who gave donations to pay for the afternoon's expenses; Culinary Exchange for its free-flowing coffee to keep the volunteers going; Blue Christmas, the college group that organized all the kids and their facilitators; and, of course, the entire Office of University Development and Alumni Relations, especially Marijo and her team. Thank you, everyone, and may God bless you all.