Thanks to Financial Times and the Nomad Rugby Team our fundraising during the Manila Tens, this March 2003 was a fantastic success. The T-shirts which FT donated sold like hotcakes. We also sold 11 books and many people donated very generously to the Springboard Foundation. Big thank you also to Helen Milne for the gorgeous design of the T-shirts.
Our completed projects:
We have paid 36,360 Pesos for the honorarium of the medical staff at the Haduan Primary healthcare centre (built by the Entrepreneur Volunteer Assistance Foundation) which serves a large community of Aetas near Clark in Pampanga.
In February we gave a check over 72,300 to The Sun and Moon Home for Children for the renovation of the bathroom facilities. They look fantastic. The children and the staff are very thankful to have such a lovely place. Taking a bath is fun time with the two bathtubs. The bathroom is complete with a miniature toilette for the little ones.
In March we also gave a donation in kind to Shiphrah and the Little Children’s Home. One overhead projector (thanks to Ningning and Rob Guest who donated this to Springboard) went to them as a teaching tool for their seminars for expecting mothers. One oven (my personal one, but don’t worry we still get home cooked food at the Helbig’s) replaced their broken one. Many toys and children’s clothes went to them as well. It was a fun day for all when we delivered the items. Roy Dallison of Financial Times was a bit overwhelmed when we met at least a dozen of incredibly busy ladies who had come all the way from America to renovate the Orphanage. They did a marvelous job and bought eleven of the Dignity and Courage books. Thank you ladies, you don’t just talk, you really make a difference. Roy and I were fortunate to see a little baby that had just been born four hours earlier that day. The happy couple looked so grateful and cradled the little one with such care it was a pleasure to observe them. Thanks to the save and caring environment as well as the prenatal preparation that Shiphrah provides the couples can deliver their children with the knowledge that they are lovingly guided through the experience.
We gave a check over 10,000 (5,000 was donated by the Nomad’s Ladies Soccer Team) for the medical needs of 11 year old Grace who is suffering from a severe kidney problem. The staff at the Little Children’s Home is supervising the donations for Grace.
In April we gave a check over 100,000 to the Rehoboth birthing home and orphanage for all the medical equipment that was need for the centre. This was financed with the funds that we raised during the Manila Tens. I never thought I’d ever buy a birthing chair but that was just one of the many medical tools needed for the mums and babies.
May was a very busy month for us. We gave a check over 69,250 to the Tuloy Foundation for sporting equipment. The 470 children were thrilled and broke out in loud cheers when it was announced that they would receive soccer goals and balls, as well as equipment for baseball, Ping Pong, tennis and bicycles. This generous donation was made possible by Michael Burmeister and his team from the British School. They collected the funds during their race for the Axion Channel.
The same month we applied for and received a donation of 274,992 from the German Embassy, which went for the renovation of the clinic roof of the Padre Burgos Community Hospital in Southern Leyte. Juergen Schneidt from Kinderhilfe Philippinen did a wonderful job supervising the construction of the roof. Many of the poorest people from Padre Burgos can now receive medical care without having rain dropping through the roof. The Ambassador H.E. Herbert Jess visited Southern Leyte on July the 1. and could see the finished construction. This speaks for German efficiency, doesn’t it?
Also in May and were able to give a donation of 350,000 to Kinderhilfe Philippinen in Southern Leyte to construct two daycare centers. One building is almost complete and the second one will finish in November. A big thank you goes to the National Honor Society of Brent School International who donated 15,000 for this project as well as the United Nations Woman’s Group who donated 35,000 and Steven Jarvis who bought a whooping 25 books of Dignity and Courage.
Still in May we gave a donation of 9,000 to the Tuloy Foundation for the materials needed for the training on the pottery wheel and for sculpturing lessons for three students. The lessons have been generously donated by Tessi and Jon Pettyjohn. Our plan is to provide the Tuloy Foundation with the facilities to teach both sculpturing and pottery to the 470 children at the centre. The three students will hopefully be able to become instructors for the other children.
In June I went on my vacation. Two wonderful months in Germany. While Roy Dallison was busy delivering donated toys, household appliances and furniture to 4 centers. I’ll write more about this later, but I can let you know already that Roy left with 4 trucks in the morning cruising around Manila and Rizal (he did get lost a bit) and he wasn’t home until 10 o’clock that night.
Now it’s August and I’m back preparing for the Christmas time which will hopefully give us many chances to raise funds for the children in the Philippines.
In September we raised 40,600 Pesos with a raffle held during the European Soccer Mini Cup at Nomad Sports Club. It is wonderful to have the support of the Club and the soccer teams. Thanks, guys.
October started with fundraising during the women and children’s Mini world cup, which added 47,000 Pesos to our account. Again I’d like to say it is so wonderful to have your support. Please look at the beneficiaries’ page to see what we were able to accomplish already. We couldn’t do this without you. We sold 22 books that months and designed our special Christmas gift box for the book. October marks also the beginning of our Christmas card production. Kim Nygaard and I (Annette) went to take photographs of smiling children in Santa hats in the Nomad’s village. I then spend many nights on the computer to select parts of the photographs and produce a layout for the cards.
Gunter Deichmann and Noni from Dream world helped us to put it all together professionally and we came out with these amazing Christmas cards. It was a huge success. Thank you Kim for the lovely photographs and thank you Gunter and Noni for your fantastic work with color separation, which they did for free and for organizing the printing. All in all we sold close to 9,000 cards and that is pretty cool. Gunter Deichmann was also so kind to choose us as the beneficiary for his auction at the launch of his new book about dive sites in Puerto Galera and Verde Island, an absolutely amazing book with brilliant under-water photography, interesting details about the area and a map of Puerto Galera. He was able to raise 83,100 Pesos for us, which was more than the printing cost of our Christmas cards. Thus he gave us back more money then we spent for printing the cards. We are using the donated money to upgrade the Sabang Elementary School.
November was a very busy month. Lisa Stuart, Kim and I were rushing to bazaars to sell books and cards, to promote the foundation, incidentally making many valuable contacts. Like Myra Monozca from Nickelodeon who was intrigued by the work we are doing and presented the Springboard Foundation to her team as a possible recipient of their Big Help Fund-drive. To our great pleasure we were the chosen beneficiary and featured on TV throughout the month of December. Nickelodeon raised 100,000 Pesos for us to which we added 80,000 and that was the amount needed to renovate one children’s ward in the Ospital ng Maynila (photographs about this are on our beneficiary page). Thank you Myra and all at the Nickelodeon team, you were wonderful.
FESTO bought 10 Dignity and Courage books and so did San Roque Power Corporation and Shell Exploration bought 20 Dignity and Courage books. The total amount of books sold in November was 69. Yes, very nice indeed.
We gave 7,400 Pesos towards the Nomad’s village kids Christmas party and used our voucher from Financial Times for a Bouncy Castle. The Party organized by Helen and John Milne was a blast.
November marks the beginning for some serious preparation for our big fundraiser in the year 2004 The Live Match, a black-tie corporate boxing dinner event. John Milne, the chairman of the Springboard Foundation is organizing this event. I think I will ask him to keep you updated about this event. Just very briefly: Jonah Lomu promised to come as a guest speaker (providing his health allows it). While many Philippine boxers will fight including, Rodel Mayol (WBC#3)and Benedict Suico will be the main attractions. Martin Nievera has tentatively agreed to perform also: the NBC tent will be the venue. Le Soufflé has offered to do the catering for free and will ask their suppliers to donate the ingredients for this sumptuous 5 course feast. Boy Cantada has generously offered to put up the boxing ring, organize the fights, secure the licenses and feature this on Television, providing our main sponsors with free television ads. Stephanie Bell from Mindshare has offered to encourage her team to find sponsors for us for this event (we met the team in January 04 and they all want to help) and Jay Adlao from CreAsia will manage this event, also free of charge. We are simply so amazed by the generosity of so many individuals and companies who have come forward and offered their help that we are often left speechless. During the night we will have an auction of sports memorabilia, featuring items signed by sporting legends such as Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Pele. This wasn’t very brief after all, but it is such an incredible community spirit and effort to help I guess one can’t be brief about it. We feel very blessed that it is moving ahead with such grace and speed.
Still in November, last but not least, Kim Nygaard and I went to Padre Burgos in Leyte to inaugurate our first 2 day-care centers, built by Juergen Schneidt, the founder of Kinderhilfe Philippinen. What an amazing trip that was. Juergen is a dream come true for any grant making foundation. His accountability, diligence and efficiency are admirable. The day-care centers are not only very reasonable; they are also perfect for the children. They are spacious, bright and complete with little tables and chairs. They feature a miniature playhouse and Sari sari store, a black board, little wooden tools, as well as a colorful array of teaching tools such as posters, books and charts. The garden is fenced in and includes a colorful swing-set. The community is involved in building the centers and the Barangay provides the teachers. Juergen makes sure they stay in good shape, rest assured he will. The village that Juergen built cares for over 100 abandoned or abused children. It is a wonderful place. The German Ambassador Herbert Jess called it a Paradise. Kim and I were so well looked after that we could have stayed for a long time. We did stay a day longer then planned because a Typhoon went over the Southern Philippines and all Flights and boats were cancelled, but with the clear blue sky that we had, we just enjoyed a little break at the beach, snorkeling and playing with the village kids. By the way, Kim and I paid our own fare, so don’t get all worked up about us using foundation funds to have a good time, we didn’t. Kim took wonderful photographs during the trip, over 300 actually, I reduced them to less then 80, but that is still too much to show on our website, but have a look at what we could put on our beneficiaries’ page.
Urs and Kumiko Riederer from Sunrise Resources LTD. Hong Kong generously donated 1,000 US$. Thank you Urs and Kumi, your continuing support is wonderful.
We were now able to donate 175,000 Pesos to IDEA, the International Deaf Education Association (ideaoff@mozcom.com) in Bohol to build a home for a deaf couple.
Then Jurgen Swinckels from DSM Nutrients Philippines (formerly Roche Vitamins, Philippines) decided to give us a donation of 200,000 Pesos to be used for the renovation of one children’s ward in the Ospital ng Maynila. I couldn’t believe what I heard when he first told me. He also gave us a donation of Fiesta ham, Queso de bola, Fuji apples and coke, which we gave to the Urchins Foundation who cares for over 100 indigent children in Better Living Paranaque. What a feast for the children. Thank you Jurgen.
Bosch then followed suit when Christian Lukas and his team decided to give us 180,000 Pesos for the renovation of another children’s ward at the Ospital ng Maynila. This was featured in the local newspapers and Bosch hopes to attract further support from Bosch internationally. Our big thank you goes to the Bosch Team.
The Springboard Foundation implements the renovation of the children’s wards with the help of Give A Life Foundation. The Give A Life Foundation has devoted all their efforts to improve medical facilities and availability of medical equipment and medicines to the poorest of the poor children in the Philippines. Thus we gave first 180,000 Pesos, then 200,000 Pesos and another 180,000 Pesos to the Give A Life Foundation. The wards will be finished in mid February.
We also received 40,000 Pesos from the Canadian Club, which we are very grateful for. It made it possible for four children who were suffering from hydro cephalous to have their operations and live normal lives from now on. What a wonderful gift, to save four lives. These 40,000 Pesos also went to Give a Life who is supervising the operations.
The New Apostolic Church Children’s orchestra and choir performed for the Manila Women’s Forum and raised 2,000 Pesos for the Springboard Foundation through the generous donations from the ladies and the Forum added 3,000 Pesos on top of that. Thank you for your wonderful support.
These are not all of our December miracles. CalEnergy donated household items to the Springboard Foundation, which we donated and sold to create funding for our projects. The re-sale value of this donation will be well over 300,000 Pesos. HMR generously helped us on December 23 to move all the items, including two generators and a water-pump; which had to be dismantled. They needed one giant truck and four trips with their smaller truck to move everything and it took us from 9am to 9pm to finish this job (this sort of didn’t help with my family preparations for Christmas, but somehow we had the best Christmas ever). Thank you to Randall Carman and his team, we could not have done this without you. Some of the items were donated to the Urchins Foundation and some went into our new branch office at the Financial Times in the PhilAmLife Tower.
Thank you to Roy Dallison for giving us the office space. We all love the place, the view from the 42nd floor is spectacular.
And then just before Christmas, we received a donation of US$20,000, yes, Dollars not Peso, from an anonymous donor. Imagine how much we will be able to help the children with that…
It leaves me with nothing else to say but thank you, thank you, to everyone involved, our donors, our fantastic team of volunteers and the foundations that work so tirelessly to implement the projects. It is a vast amount of work, but well worth it. I feel truly blessed.
With this I’d like to move into the year 2004: The Give A Life’s quotation, so true and down to the point:
“My children, we must not only talk about loving people: we must show we love people by what we do for them. We must really love them” (1.John 3:17-19)