Los Banos, Laguna

The Feed the Hungry Classrooms Nos. 75 & 76, was formally started today with a pre-construction meeting among the signatories to the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) namely FtH volunteers Pablito and Tess, CFO staff Tobi, Contractor Engr. Adriano, Principal Encabo, Brgy Captain Alborida, PTA president, and other school officials.

Principal Syl was very excited about the unexpected donation of the classrooms as she was wondering where to place her new teacher and more students from a new GK village nearby. Her prayers were answered and she was surprised when the construction crew and building materials arrived this week.

Capt. Alborida and the PTA President promised to fully support the construction of the classrooms by providing sweat equity from the parent and barangay residents by helping haul the materials from the road to the construction site, some distance away. Capt. Alborida assured the provision of back fill materials to level the site. All local government officials and school staff promised to protect and maintain their new classrooms.

After a long day of hard and enjoyable work, on our way back to Manila, we treated every one in our group of FtH, CFO and Engr. Myles with an ice cold , delicious, sweet, 'fiesta' (as in super big bowl) halo-halo at Chow King.

In 1993, the idea of Feed the Hungry was borne here in Los Banos when Pablito and Tess met a young street orphan begging for alms. Instead of giving some change, Tess invited the boy to have lunch with us. In gratitude for his breakfast and lunch (and maybe dinner), the boy did not accept any handout and kept on repeating his thanks to the couple. Noticing that Pablito could not back out into the very busy street, the boy placed his young body in harms' way and stopped the traffic from both directions to gave me a chance to drive home. As we drove away, we still heard him say "THANK YOU and BALIK PO KAYO", which we did every year, ever since, with other FtH volunteers joining in.