December 5, 2012
Dear Sponsors and Friends,
Thank you for helping to make it the best year ever for Give Children Hope and the sponsored children. Your love and support has been greatly appreciated by the children and families you have helped.
Your donations have provided two of the most important means that children living in extreme poverty need to free themselves from extreme poverty – critical daily meals and school opportunities.
I am including two letters with the one I am sending to you. One is from Kristina Sunico and the other one is from Helen Agawin. Both work with our programs in the Philippines and they are, in large part, the reason why we are having such success with our Give Children Hope programs for the Filipino sponsored children.I am thankful for friends like you who do so much to further the cause of the children. Life is very difficult for the children in the Philippines. Your love and support give the children hope even in times of great distress in their lives.We send you our love from here and our best wishes for the coming holidays.Don Cooper
Give Children Hope,
Chief Operations Officer
Enclosures
(Letter from Kristina Sunico)
Merry Christmas from your sponsored children here in the Philippines
Your donations and children’s sponsorships have given over 600 very poor schoolchildren nutritious, daily meals at Sua and Maravilla Elementary Schools.
During this year you have made it possible for these 600 sponsored children to receive 1,222 math and reading books for their school use.
In addition you have made it possible for these sponsored children to receive their much-needed school supplies for their schools.Through your sponsorship and support, the children have been blessed with shipments of clothing, shoes, and personal dress things they needed to feel good and look good while at school and at home.You have given these sponsored children a chance to receive a good education that will help them and be remembered by them all their lives.
I want to thank you for giving these children so much this year. The children here at the Sua and Maravilla Elementary schools send thanks to you for helping them so much. They send their love to you with this letter. They wish you a Merry Christmas and that you may have happy holidays to come.One of the sponsored children you have helped this year is Enos, who lives here in Manila. Enos is at a school here in Manila that doesn’t have the Meals at School Program as they are in Southern Luzon. But he wanted to let you know that he is very thankful for the sponsorship fund you have been giving him. He says, “I am getting so much busy with school but I am loving it. Being a student here is fun. Your sponsorship fund has helped me with the food and school help I need. I knew from the Give Children Hope that you have been helping to feed the children in both Sua and Maravilla Elementary Schools. The children with the feeding have a great thing for them. Thank you for helping children like me.”
“All the other sponsored children wanted to extend thanks for the sponsorships you have extended to them, for providing their food and for their school needs. These little children are very happy whenever they see that they have complete set of school supplies in their bags, just like me. I am so happy that thru the sponsorship, all of my school needs are being pr ovided; That was so helpful and I greatly appreciate the help you have given me me, from then till now.”Not only your sponsored children are grateful for your help and are excited for Christmas but almost everyone here are sharing the love around. The places are being covered with lights and lanterns. They are all so magnificent. We do not have snow but it is starting to get cold, the more it brings the Christmas feeling.Here in the Philippines our sponsored children here in Manila and our 600 children receiving the Give Children Hope Meals at School Program at Maravilla and Sua Elementary Schools give thanks to each of you for sponsoring them with daily meals that they so much need. Also, thank you so much for the books, clothing, and your love in remembering us.
In behalf of the sponsored children, we would like to great you and your families a Merry Christmas. May you enjoy this great season with your families. We hope that you will feel our love for all of you.For the Give Children Hope sponsored children,
Kristina Lou Calidayan Sunico-Nobles
(Letter from Helen Grace Agawin)
Dear Give Children Hope Sponsors and Friends,May you always have a great day! Our Give Children Hope Meals@ School here is continuously doing great everyday! .. The parents and the people of Sua School as well as are amazed with this wonderful program ... They are so much thankful for all the people behind this especially to you! In behalf of them I thank you from our hearts!I hope things are doing well with you. I am sorry for not always communicating very often. As a college instructor, I am just too busy with work especially that it is the closing of the semester, lots of things to do and to finish before the deadline.
I live in Camarines, Sur which is on the Main Island of Luzon in the Philippines. It is located at the southern end of the island.As a mother, a grandma, and a wife...plus our meals at school program, I am kept really busy.I want to give you an update on what is happening in our Meals at School here at Sua Elementary School and for the same program for the children at Maravilla Elementary School. We now have Facebook sites which have the posts and the uploaded pictures for both Sua and Maravilla ElemSchools. I hope you always get a chance to look at them.
All goes well here with the program. … in fact, we have mastered what to do in an organized and systematic way. The parents told me that even if they no longer taste what they cooked…they know for sure that it tastes very good because they know the exact amount of ingredients to put already.
If you can just come to talk with the parents, you will know how grateful they are for having this wonderful program of Give Children Hope. It helps them so much. A teacher told me of how some of her students do when feeding times come--- they would bring with them a bowl/container with a cover, and after eating half of the serving they will cover it and keep the half to take home for their younger siblings, but most of the time they have the second or 3rd serving.There was one time I went to see my sister Maribelle, she teaches high school students…when suddenly a group of young girls caught my attention they give me a respect in a typical Filipino way ( getting your hand to their forehead). I was wondering who these kids are they are not ordinary because I could feel their love and I could sense their happiness upon seeing me.I asked them who they are and with excitement they said that they used to be students of Sua Elementary School and were beneficiaries of the meals at school of GCH. I know through the smiles on their faces and the respect they have shown me and excitedly telling me how they enjoyed their everyday meals that they were grateful to Give Children Hope.I wish you can come to see how this program is doing and how it is helping a lot of children here and perhaps listen to their life stories.Last night I was talking to my son-in-law in Manila telling me about the meeting he attended with the returned missionaries who served in Naga Mission. They have plans on helping other people too… and he said they made Give Children Hope an example. My son-in-law was surprised when he heard about GCH because he knew how true and how active the foundation is … and he raised his hand and told the group that he can attest to that; that he knows that GCH is doing well in the Philippines and is supporting Maravilla and Sua school children with the everyday meals at school program and other help it is giving the children here in the Philippines.On behalf of the 600 children, teachers, and parents of Sua and Maravilla Schools...
May you all be blessed abundantly in life.Sincerely,Helen Grace P. Agawin - GCH Cam. Sur
GCH Philippines Meals at School Coordinator
