Love and Generosity

Yesterday, my staff and I had one memorable experience as a group after our Christmas activity at The Block, SM City North EDSA.

my staff with the recipient of our gift

Instead of celebrating Christmas the traditional way, we opted to pool our resources to “adopt-a-family.” Each of my staff, though earning between US $ 6-8/day, donated US $ 3.52 each, and as a group, we came up with almost US $73.00. Good Samaritans who heard of our project added US $ 17.00 to the fund and 2 movie passes worth US $ 4.75 . We used the money to purchase a decent meal for “Noche Buena”. And goodies that can meet the family needs for about 3-5 days. We also gave them 2 movie passes for any movie in any SM Cinemas nationwide.

We selected the family following this process:

1. Each staff nominated a family they personally know, but should not be a relative.
2. The family should be in great financial distress but not into gambling or any vices.
3. And of the nominees, we deliberated as a group to choose the recipient.

We chose the family who lives in one of the slum areas of Quezon City. The couple is past their productive age, the husband used to work for the dad of my staff until he suffered a stroke. The wife makes a living by washing and ironing clothes.

So after office, off we go from the southern part of the city (Pasay) to North EDSA. We had dinner at Chicken Inasal with the recipient family. Afterwards, we handed our gifts.

Of course, we have our traditional exchange gifts as we laugh recalling our challenging moments as a group. The atmosphere was filled with happiness, enjoying the activity and the presence of each other. We closed the activity with a prayer, greeting the LORD Jesus for His birthday and thankful for the opportunity and the means to be generous despite the financial challenges some of us are facing. We also lift our families and love ones in prayer, for tip-top health and protection, specially for our pregnant staff. We also prayed for prosperity, wisdom and guidance in our work as we welcome the new year.

The hassles we endured like traffic jam and ATM’s running out of cash due to the yuletide rush is incomparable with the joy and peace we experienced. This activity became value adding, not only to the family we adopt, but to our own relationship and finances as well. And we intend to make this activity a yearly tradition .

Being a blessing to our less fortunate fellowmen is a noble deed, but it is far better to prepare ourselves and our love ones for proper care and attention when it is needed most– when we or our love ones become “senior citizens”.