Got this from a good friend. If anyone there can help...
My office, Maragondon Water District, had initially planned to do something special for Christmas for the children here in our town of Maragondon (a municipality in the province of Cavite in the Philippines).
Just to give everyone a little backgrounder:
For those not familiar with the town, Maragondon is a municipality in Cavite. It’s in between the towns of Naic and Ternate (where Puerto Azul Beach Resort is, as well as Caylabne Beach Resort). As of Census 2000, there are 31,227 people in this municipality. Basically the town gets its earnings from agricultural products, although right now a lot of the people here are trying their luck starting small business here and there but nothing major. Although there are some families here that are blessed with steady incomes and can provide for their children, there is still a large portion of the town that isn’t as fortunate (evidenced by the fact that Jimmy Carter went here personally to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity - you can check the site on that -- http://www.habitat.org/jcwp/99/ )
We planned to take at least 50 grade school kids selected by the public school teachers representing each barangay of our municipality to have a Christmas party. We would take them to McDonald’s or Jollibee (a local version of McDonald’s for the non-Filipino out there) and we would have a party with games and prizes/giveaways and everything. We had already discussed this in passing with some of the teachers and we were already planning what to do for that day to see how much would have to be spent. You see the thing is, if we take them to McDonald’s or Jollibee that’s a big deal in itself because we would be taking them to the branch in another part of Cavite since Maragondon doesn’t have that here.
Unfortunately, with the current financial crisis and the national government limiting expenses by government agencies and corporations, we won’t be able to push through with the party as planned since we cannot do this using office funds. This is disappointing because I was looking forward to giving these kids a nice little gathering that they would love for that time of the year. My officemates and I were thinking of pooling our money together to come up with at least the McDonald’s meal and transportation for all the kids but hey – going to McDonalds and not doing anything else doesn’t exactly make things that special right?
I wanted to sulk and just postpone the whole thing but I was wondering if anyone out there would be willing to help me and my officemates out. I just want this Christmas thing to push through!!!
If anyone knows anyone working for the management of McDonald’s or Jollibee (here in the Philippines of course) or any other foodie establishment who could help us by sponsoring the event or if you know anyone who works in companies who can help us to provide for little gifts for the kids and for prizes for parlor games and such, please let them know about what we would like to do for these kids. If anyone of you is willing to lend a hand in making a special Christmas for these kids, please let me know by emailing me at clarefrancisco777@yahoo.com .
And for the celebrity friends out there, if any one of you would like to take part in this by being there when this happens to make it extra special, please let me know – we would all really appreciate it out here. Or if anyone knows of any celebrity or something like that who could help in the entertainment part of the party, please let me know. I really want this to be a special day for the kids. We’ve scheduled December 17, 2004 (Friday) as the day for the party. We’re looking at maybe a morning till early afternoon thing, depending on what we can come up with.
I do hope there are kind hearted people out there who could help me out. This is totally legit and I will post photos of the event in my blog www.neverbeenkissed.blogdrive.com when it happens to show everyone if it does push through (if we get people to help, otherwise it would just be a simple trip to McDonald’s with the kids – which I will still post pics of anyway). This will also be published in the quarterly newsletter of the Cavite Association of Water Districts, which I am in charge of. If it turns out well, I could probably have it included in the Southern Tagalog Association of Water Districts newsletter as well.
