When I started MommyWithAGoal, my main goal was to hopefully inspire others (especially mothers alike) with what I advocate the most, Self-Care. Little did I know that it is I who would be learning more from this motherhood community. From the usual everyday challenge of having things done while trying to be mindful of making a priority to give myself some time as well.

It’s truly a great feeling when you yourself feel whole from within, happy and grateful. You have this feeling of power within you to help more to others. This gave me an urge to do something I never thought I could pull off when SuperTyphoon Odette devastated my husbands hometown in Maasin City, Southern Leyte. As far as he can remember, this was the only time his province got hit this hard by a Typhoon and it was quite hard to comprehend that those you usually just see in news has happened to your neighbour’s homes.

It was also then that I realise how the government and media focus more on big cities in the country such as Cebu, Bohol, and Siargao (currently Philippines famous must-go-to island and Surfing Capital of the country) and some provinces like Southern Leyte that has been hit the same way, left unrecognised. I’m not trying to be political here as I know the government is also doing their best to provide as much as they can. A country full of islands and tons of places affected, I don’t even want to imagine how much stressful it was for those in-charge.

What I’m trying to highlight is how much a little of each can make a difference if we all of us had the urge to help. In situations like this, every small help that can be contributed matters. That’s when the daring idea started.

I knew I wanted to help yet don’t want to put our finances in jeopardy as well. Despite not knowing where to get funds, let alone know how to run a fundraising, I went on and did it anyway. haha. True enough, with the support of family, friends, and this motherhood community, every small contribution have truly lightened up hearts of many.

This project has really humbled every aspect of my whole being. From starting to ask old friends I knew from a very long time who I haven’t spoken in decades to reaching out to new friends I had acquaintance through Social Media. All this swallowing of ego and loading up my confidence just so a number of people could be reached with help and make their Christmas a better one despite having experienced this kind of calamity.

It took a lot of prayer and I’m so grateful to say that we’ve come up with around Php 45,000 in 4 days, just in time to prepare for Christmas. With this money came in also a donation of 100 steel roof to help those who lost their homes.

With this money, we’re able to provide 35 families with rice, canned goods and other pantry supplies that can aid them for a while and a simple Christmas feast of roasted chicken, chiffon cake, and soft drinks.

It is with great gratitude and humble gratefulness from the people who shared some of their blessings to make this happen. The financial donation really helped a lot.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I do not have enough knowledge on how fundraisings work and once the money was in, I was faced with another hurdle. The fact that the whole city was devastated, communication lines were put to halt, and even withdrawing money from banks caused a lot of difficulty.

My in-laws needed to go to a specific place in their town to have signal on their phone. We also need to reach them through overseas call (like the old days) instead of what we commonly and freely use nowadays as communication (viber, FB Messenger, or WhatsApp). That made us realise how helpful these technology had helped us make our lives easier yet we never appreciate. As the saying goes, “You’ll never realise the value of something until its gone”.

Withdrawing from ATM machines weren’t available. The only big supermarket in the city was closed and those SME’s doesn’t accept credit cards nor GCash. Add to that the rapidly thinning supply due to the large demand.

Doing errands also needed to be done only during daytime as electric poles were knocked down and news says that it would take over a month to put everything back to normal. Without lights, once the sun sets, it was difficult and dangerous going around especially with trees still blocking roads.

Luckily with the help of my in-laws doing the grind of hard work, everything was able to be pulled off smoothly. Queuing outside the bank in seemed to be an endless line under the scorching sun and hustling to get the items needed from the grocery despite not knowing if the money needed to pay could be withdrawn from the bank yet has been quite an experience. A great kudos to them for their help!

All donations has been given on the eve of Christmas just in time for the celebration.

As Christmas doesn’t end on Christmas Day alone, same as the hurdles these families would encounter in the days to come. Due to hardware supplies from hardware stores going out of stock, we have yet to give out the steel roof and other construction materials we can purchase with the excess donation left on hand. We could only hope to have this issue settled and finally provide the needed to those families in need.

Our goal is to have this done before the Twelfth day of Christmas, well known as the Epiphany or the Feast of the Three Kings. With that, a follow-up blog post would follow.

Again, a heart-full of gratefulness for the kind donation of the following people below who had helped made Share A Christmas Project possible:

Ms. Alison Setton and Family

Ms. Zoe Chu and Family

Ms. Christal Perez and Family

Ms. Marielle Hillenbrand and Family

Ms. Carmela Duque and Family

Ms. Princess Liwag and Family

Ms. Mary Anne Galang and Family

Ms. Sheryl Cantos and Family

Ms. Janice Hollander-Urbach and Family

Ms. Michelle Hon and Family

Ms. Tracy Jungwirth and Family

Ms. Minda Villa

Dra. Sheri Paola Lirio

Ms. Phola Amyll Lirio

Ms. Pauline Lirio-Panaligan and Family

Ms. Susan Canobas and Family

Mr. & Mrs Apolo & Mila Lirio and Family

Ms. Dawn Nicole Macandili

Ms. Nadine Baritua-Soriano and Family

Ms. Hanna Ortega and Family

Ms. Twinkle Roa and Family

Ms. Judy Aguilar and Family

Learnings for this project:

It only takes an initiative from someone to be able to help more. It doesn’t matter whether you don’t have the funds, people, or even tons of hurdles along the way. Helping can be done if you want to.

There’s so much good people in the world. Despite all the bad people we hear from the news and how scary the world could be, humanity still remains and the sense of community still is there.

Gratefulness should be mindfully done everyday. Calamities like a Supertyphoon that can devastate cities in a day should be an eye-opener to everyone and see how blessed they are to be living the life they are living in. We may all have problems in life and different circumstances but like any typhoon, we should keep in mind that those problems shall pass.

As 2021 comes to an end and we enter a New Year, I hope you get to read my other article, Self-Care during the Holidays, and be inspired to do some much needed Self-Care.

A Happy New Year to All!!!!