Sharing of Our Blessings at Bahay Aruga (Service Learning- Event Proper)

On Sunday, June 25, 2017, I woke up early as this was the agreed day with Ms. Mayette Bonilla, Founder and President of BahayAruga that our De La Salle University (DLSU) Master of Business Administration (MBA)  BUS560M-2017 Class Group will share our blessings to the pediatric cancer patients.

After breakfast, donned with white t-shirt with Green Archers printed in front and my blue jeans and black rubber shoes, I have  gatheredall the  items that I can share like new folding umbrella,six pieces of white face towels,  one purse, one pouch  and a small black bag (from Watsons) and a black back pack (my Christmas gift from  our client Court Meridian Hotel, Subic).

 I went straight to the plant store near our village.  I as I was the lead person for the requested vertical gardening activity of Ms. Bonilla, I purchased all the required materials and tools assigned for me to buy.  Thus,  I bought six half sacks of garden soil and had it loaded at the trunk of my car. Then I went to the nearby Handyman Store inside the  Robinson’s Townsville and bought three pieces of garden tools for my team,  various vegetable seeds in packets,  three small chairs and three pairs of  hand gloves. As there was no available water can, then I bought   one small pail and one small water dipper. 

With all of the required materials already completed, I had a quick lunch at Army Navy  along the way and then proceeded to BahayAruga  at San Marcelino, Manila. The traffic was light that’s why I was able to arrive at the agreed time of 12:30 pm. Some team members were already there while the rest of the  team arrived one after the other.  My team member , Josh  and his sister were  there already so they  helped me unload the sacks of the garden soil,  the bags of prizes, and the other paper bags of seeds, and plastic wares for gardening. Mark was still on his way because he had lunch with his family.

When I went inside the multipurpose area, I was surprised that all the kids and  their mothers were already seated on the chairs and were waiting for us. The agreed time with Ms. Bonilla for the event proper was 3:00pm based on our site ocular and meeting with her  last June 2017.  We arrived early at 12:30pm to give each of our groupstime  to prepare. Like for thevertical  gardening activity,  my team mates (Josh and Mark) and I planned  to just put ahead of time,  the garden soil on the plastic pots (that Mark will purchase and bring to the site) so that the kids will just put the seeds, then Josh will water the plants and then Mark will facilitate the hanging of the plastic pots on the vertical garden mesh wire.

When I learned from our team that the parents said that Ms. Bonilla said that they were instructed by Ms. Bonilla to proceed to the activity area as the program will start at 1:00pm. Thus, I talked to the parents and informed them  that the agreed start time for the program will be at 3:00pm. We were just there early as we need to prepare everything beforehand. But they said that the kids will already sleep at 3:00pm. With this, I had a quick meeting with our team and we agreed that we will already start with our games with prizes, while the team in charge of the food, i.e., Jennelyn, Josh and Apryl  will prepare the food already and then after eating, we will proceed with the gardening activity. Marichu brought her friend, while Josh invited  his sister and Liza came with her daughter too to join us.  These three angels helped us to take pictures and videos to document  our activities.   Mark also brought his video cam so he can take videos for our team.

I promised Marichu (the lead person and host  for the games), that I will help her with the games and distribution of prizes. Zyrine, Zalia and Liza also helped in the games. Originally, Marichu prepared just three games, i.e., Bring Me with six winners; Stop Dance  with three winners; and Hep-hep Hurray with one winner. However, we had lots and lots of prizes after these three games, so I suggested to Marichu that we also do a Trip to Jerusalem, then conduct a Raffle and give numbers to  25 kids so we can give away all our prizes. Zyrine and I prepared the two sets of small papers with numbers 1 to 25. I put the first set of 25 numbers in a paper bag and the other set, I asked each and every kid to get a number for the Raffle Game.

The kids and their respective mothers enjoyed all the games conducted by our team for them. They were able to get all sorts of gifts from us such as different colors of bath towels, face towels, umbrella,  drinking tumblers, packs of notebooks with crayons,  bags, purse, back packs, etc.

The Games Team during the Hep-hep Hurray game.

Enjoying the Hep-hep Hurray Game with the kids.

Anne posing with the winner of the game.

We were only given two hours to do the whole program, i.e., form 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Thus, right after the games, the Food Team who were preparing their healthy snack of bread with strawberry jam and fresh banana took their turn to announce the snack time. They were also able to get a donation of a birthday cake for the kiddie celebrants for June and July.  Everyone  sang the  happy birthday song and the celebrants were able to blow their candles on the cake.

The Food Team, busy preparing our healthy snacks.

Our healthy snack treats.

Right after the games were over, I proceeded right away to the gardening area to prepare and put soil   on the pots brought by Mark. Josh, Mark and I used the green gloves and  the  small  green kiddie chairs that I bought. Liza also helped us in putting garden soils in all the 50 small plastic pots. The sister of Josh helped us put stick-on labels  on the pots to help identify the kinds of vegetable seeds that we planted on each pot. After a few minutes, the children began surrounding us, as they were curious on what we were doing. I have informed them that we are creating a garden for them to take care of and that they can help us by putting the seeds on the soil. So our team had a bunch of kiddie surrounding each of us and we all helped them one by one put the seeds on the soil. They also helped us water the pots with seeds. Then when all the said pots were done, Mark hanged them one by one until all the pots were hanging on the vertical mesh wire of Ms. Bonilla.

Anne with Kyza during our gardening activity.

All these time, Ms. Bonilla was not present during the whole program. She only appeared during the start and end of the activities. I think that she was not interested in what we had to share as they  were all in kind and not cash.  Each segment was done in 30 minutes time. Thus, by 3:00pm, we  were done with all the activities and clean up.

The team members were all  happy that we had a successful execution of what we had planned. One parent requested us to buy some souvenir key chains which were handmade by all the patients and their parents to help them with their expenses. These keychains were all beautifully made from the white and  yellow pages of telephone directories. The parents even requested us to bring them Telephone directories so they can be made into paper keychains to raise funds for their children.

The DLSU-MBA BUS560-2017 Team together with the pediatric cancer patients at Bahay Aruga after our Service Learning Activity.

With this, we  liquidated with Zyrine all our cash advances so that we can determine how much cash was left so we can use it to purchase the beautiful keychains priced at P50.00 per piece. 

With the left over cash, all of the team members including family members and friends  chose three keychains each as our souvenirs  for a job well done from this heavenly place called Bahay Aruga.