The Second Big Day

After the first distribution, there were still so many packs of writing materials left that the volunteers decided to share them out to another group.

Sixth graders with their pens

The Beneficiary
Langub Elementary School is a small public school located in Barangay Langub, Maa, Davao City. It's a clean and well-maintained school because the local officials were able to source out funds from both government offices and non-government organizations for its beautification. Their dedicated and commendable Baragay Captain, who strongly believes in the value of education, schedules regular campus cleanups actively participated by the community residents.

One sunny day at Langub Elementary School

But majority of the families living in this community has an income of 1,100 - 4,000 pesos. Most of the people are small time farmers and others are tenants, taxi drivers, construction workers, scavangers, security guards or below minimum wage earners. This definitely affects their daily sustenance and children's education. Further, due to lack of means of transportation, students have to walk a few kilometers from their thatched houses to school, resulting to increase in dropout rate. To prevent this problem, their sweet Barangay Captain fetches the students from several meeting places early in the morning with the community multicab.

The Distribution

Receiving pens from Sir Ian

The distribution took place right after the school's flag ceremony on August 17, 2009. While all students were still gathered on the school grounds, the Principal introduced the three volunteers (Sir Ian, Mailah and Kikit) from the Social Involvement Coordinating Office of Ateneo de Davao University. To avoid interrupting their regular classes, no program was conducted for the students unlike the first distribution. Each class president was simply called to the front to receive a bag of writing materials from the donors of Pens of Hope in Davao.

Third graders writing what their hearts say

For students to realize that expression is one of the reasons why they should value writing materials, a wish list activity was conducted. However, as agreed with the principal, only third and sixth graders were asked to write their wishes. Wishes will be summarized in the next entry.

Expression of gratitude

As a gift, children gave the volunteers posters of gratitude and lots of happy smiles that made that day sunnier and the world a lot brighter.

Many thanks to Langub barangay officials, Langub ES teachers and of course, to all our donors. Maraming salamat po!

To view more pictures, please click here.