OUR SCHOOL VISIT

This post is a little long, but I didn't know what not to say :)

School Principal, Grace, Paul, Fleur, Me, Ray
With the donations (Including Ice Cream, courtesy of Paul)

One of the things I was looking forward to doing when I came was visiting a school the Rotary Club sponsers for a lunch program. The Rotary Club and the JC's are very active in Kabankalan. They do a lot of community service and they are the ones who help out ICSF when they are in town. They are the one's who provide food (lunch & dinner) while the team is at the hospital. They are the transportation to and from the hotel to the hospital (sometimes very late at night). They are just great organizations that do a lot of good.

So, back to the school. The Rotarians chose this specific school to help because they have quite a few children who do not get the nutrition they need. Some days if the children didn't have anything for lunch at lunch time, they would go home and usually not go back. Therefore, not getting their education. The Rotarians asked the school to choose 50 0f the most undernourished 1st grade children, so they could provide them a nutritious lunch. They are providing lunch for 40 days for these children. I asked if they were going to continue to this project and Grace said that they were only doing it for this one time. I am going to talk to her more to see what we can do to help out. I realize there is a lot of need out there and we can't do everything, but maybe there is a little something.

The Rotary Club was also able to donate a TV and DVD player and a clean water tank and pump. Those items also arrived the day we visited. We were lucky enough to watch the pricipal open the boxes, then she invited us to have our picture taken with her and the donations.

Before we actually went to visit the children while they were eating lunch, the told us they had some snacks for us. So off we went to the Principal's office!

Here is "that" Grace eating her snack of boiled bananas and sweet potatoes.

Now it was time to go visit the children. We arrived just at the teachers were serving the lunch. There was a big pot of rice and another pot that had some sort of vegetable soup. It is the responsibility of the parents to take turns preparing the food for the lunch. The children also provide their own plate and cup and spoon.

They wait in line for their turn to receive their food.

Now it's time to eat!

I commented to Grace that they didn't seem undernourished and she said that they have been doing the program since November and all of the children have gained weight! They were pretty healthy and very happy!

And you know, not one of them said "I don't like this!"

They loved it!

In the first picutre you may be wondering who Paul is. Paul is a guy who had a friend that recenty passed away and left Paul in charge of a large amount of money with instructions to do something good for the children of the Philippines. Pauls friend liked to go to schools and buy ice cream for the children. Paul recently heard about ICSF and wanted to help the foundation in some way, so he is. He has donated money and he is making sure the team is well cared for while here. For example, the first 2 days we ordered our breakfast individually and it took quite a while for it to come and our driver would have to wait. Paul took care of it. We now have a buffet style breakfast every morning. Paul found out the team didn't have cold drinks during the day. He goes out every morning gets 2 coolers full of ice and drinks. Paul is a good guy to have around. So not only is Paul providing little extras for the team, he wanted to provide extra for the children at the school when we went to visit. In keeping with his friend's tradition, he brought ice cream!

Sandra, Paul & "Amazing" Grace

After scooping out ice cream for not only the 50 lunch program children, we scooped out for the whole first grade!

While we were scooping, Fleur asked the children how many had never had ice cream before. There were about 85% of the kids who raised their hands.

(You have it good, Matt!)

When we were done scooping for the 1st grade we had some left. There were kids peeking in the door watching, so we scooped up what we had left and gave it to them.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough for all the onlookers.

But not to worry. We'll be back on Tuesday with more ice cream!!!