Few months ago, I joined a charitable organization, Progressive Assistance Canada, PAC on one of their weekly Play and Catch Up activities which was a workshop for children. That was my first time joining them which paved the way for them to add me to their Facebook group. Then I started receiving updates regarding their regular activities.
Sometime in November, I received an invitation about distribution of Bundles of Hope. It was distribution of food packages to less privileged families in Smokey Mountain Field of Dreams community at Tondo, Manila on December 16th. Except for the date and time, I did not pay attention to the other details. I just went on accepting the invitation.
Eight days before the date, I remember about the activity and realized that I do not know how to go to the place so I revisited the invitation. That was when I realized it was also a solicitation for donation to fund the food packages. The good thing is that it was the day before the deadline so I was able to catch up. I sent my share through online bank transfer.
There was a meeting place where we volunteers convene before we all went to the venue. When we arrived, the van full of food packages is already there. The PAC founder immediately started our orientarion. It looks like they were only waiting for us. We had to split into different teams and went our own assigned area of the community.
Each food package was composed of five kilograms of rice, one kilogram of spaghetti pasta with sauce and a bag of assorted grocery items like sardines and instant noodles. With the heavy weights, a group of seven should go together. Five will carry two kilograms of rice for each of them. One will carry the box of pasta with sauce and one will carry the bag of assorted grocery items.
We distributed for every family and the only condition was that there should be someone at home. No one claims for their neighbor and say that they will give it later.
Children flocked around us when we started distributing the packages. Two young ladies even tailed and guided us around the area. That was very nice of them!
I gave my phone to this young lady, Jennalyn, and she took care of the photography. She was one of our guides until we were done with the distribution.
When I took my phone back, it displays the message on the next photo. When I got the chance to copy the photos to my external hard drive, there are 368 photos from the event! Now I still have to find time to clean them up. 😀 At least, a very good young lady took care of the documentation of the event. That's what matters, I guess. She somehow got an eye for what to take photos of. 😊
Jennalyn and her companion were very patient tailing us, taking photos and telling us if there are still houses that we have missed. In a crowded slum area like this, we cannot tell one house from another. You can just stand along the alley, turn 360° and be able to have reached four or more doors.
My bag was emptied fast. I needed to refill.
Refilled and back on track. Onward we go.
That is the founder of PAC joining us around. Why, I feel small. 😀
The gang continued the mission.
Even into corners of these... The cat was curious. Did you find it?
Back to the base, refilling again. I did not count how many times I had to refill my bag but overall, our batch distributed 115 packages. That means 115 families of beneficiaries. There were more packages left that totals up to more than 200 (I forgot the exact number) but those will be just handed over to a coordinator in a nearby area so majority of us volunteers did not join anymore.
Farther and further we went...
And continued to give more.
As we went farther inside the community, we found a garden. We passed through the row houses along the road and at the back, we discovered a more pleasant and refreshing environment which made me feel like I was in the province. Almost all of us volunteers have the same comment to the residents there.
"It's good that you have places like this within the community. It is open and much fresher like in the province. You can also produce fruits and vegetables for a living."
One of the residents responded, "Yes, we glad about it and are doing our best to maintain it."
I remembered this place when after our group photo shoot at the end of the activity, I had a chat with the PAC founder. He mentioned that they have long term goal for the community and the very next target is to educate the people about home gardening. Great! They can utilize the vacant lots.
Time to pause for the camera because we were done distributing the food packages. That is Anne, a fellow volunteer whom I met at the event. We immediately became friends on Facebook when we were still on the way to the venue and she was already asking for my Facebook account. I actually met and became friends with more of the volunteers. The beauty of this activity is that you meet wonderful and generous people who care for others specially those in more need.
I now have my phone to take photo of this very tamed creature tied along our way. I reached out and touched it, he didn't move. My fellow volunteers were warning me that it might attack suddenly but it did not. Cheers, buddy!
On our way back to base, I got the chance to snap this photo. It basically defines the kind of community it is. I will leave it with you to find your own description. At the back of the houses on the right is where we found the garden and more vacant lots.
There were also sacks of rubber slippers, toys and clothings in the van so we had those distributed next. However this time, we no longer went from house to house. We set a table along the road and people came to try fitting. What fits them is theirs but just one set for each, of course.
It started a little chaos at first but people specially the children got eventually organized.
Then there are those baby booster packages. It is a set of a bottle of vitamin, cereal pack and milk pack. Beneficiaries of these were selected because PAC has a list of small children who receive the package regularly.
The following two photos are not from my phone but are courtesy of PAC.
This was the van full of what we distributed.
After all the distribution, the event will not be completed without group photo shoot.
The following day, Monday, I woke up with sore muscles. My body pained all over and I wondered why. Then I realized what one of the volunteers were saying yesterday at the event. The big bag that I yook had 10 packages of assorted grocery items. Though I thought it was okay, one volunteer was saying I might want to reduce into five packages so it won't be too heavy. I insisted with ten when we were disttibuting near by our base. I reduced when we got farther. Now I feel the pain. Just imagine when you haven't had physical activities for a long time and suddenly go through this roaming with around 10 kilograms of weights pulling your shoulders while roaming around.
It was a painful Monday but it was a very humbling experience. My fellow volunteers were actually saying that we do it again. For me, I will surely do it again. It is heart warming to hear the same from others. I eventually got into a group chat where they coordinate volunteering activities.
By the way, Jennalyn was clever enough to have snapped a short video as we reconvene when we moved further inside the community.
The packages we distributed may last for just few days but we all hope it will somehow enlighten the families specially this time of the year when every one should celebrate. As the program is dubbed, may those bundles for hope serve the purpose of bringing hope to the families in the community.
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