We are helping the poor and we don’t want to help them poorly.

#Kids4Kids #K4K #Nina #GreatAngelo #Tres #EnthusiaticElisa #DonBosco

#ONETeam #SNAPS #SageandNotableAdvisesfromPatrickSalazar

Every Christmas season since 2010, my kids search for ultra poor communities outside Metro Manila to give their Christmas gifts and food packs. Salesian Father Ellie Cruz introduced us to their adopted community in Calauan Laguna. It is a resettlement community where over 10,000 of illegal settlers across the 16 cities of Metro Manila were transferred to.

The brothers of Don Bosco in Calauan informed us that what’s uniquely sad about this community is that the parents still work far away in Metro Manila and leave their children with the care of random neighbors or just leave the children on their own. This has resulted to widespread child abuse and abandonment. (additional reference: https://lnkd.in/daSG7WeK)

Our kids fell in love with the children of Calauan that they went back in 2016 for their annual Kids 4 Kids (K4) Christmas gift giving.

With the grace of our Lord, I was appointed to head our community service advocacy at work. When I told the story of Don Bosco Calauan to our senior leadership team at work, they decided to adopt the community as the primary beneficiary of our Investing For Good (IFG) program. Aside from adopting the community of Don Bosco Calauan, IFG also adopted 3 public schools in Calauan Laguna.

Salesian Brother Lito Dela Cruz told us “We are helping the poor and we do not want to help them poorly. Thank you to your Salazar Kids for discovering our community. Because of them, your IFG program at work also found us”

*About the video

This was the second Christmas gift giving of my 4 awesome kids in Don Bosco Calauan Laguna. What they started resulted to my employer adopting the children from the resettlement community of Calauan Laguna.

From 2017 until 2019, IFG was able to:

* FEED 3,000 CHILDREN PER DAY in partnership with Rise Against Hunger wherein our Associate conduct up to 5 meal packing events per year

* Install 3 potable Water Towers in partnership with Planet Water

* Donate up to 4,000 dream in a shoebox Christmas gifts composed of school supplies every Christmas in partnership with Team Asia

* Donate up to 1,000 school bags with school supplies every start of the school year

* Quarterly Sports Clinic - basketball, soccer, table tennis, badminton, volleyball, chess & other board games, Zumba & dance classes

* Story Reading events and other English communication programs

* Several of our employee Interest Groups have conducted their special events in Calauan like Christmas events, Halloween events, Summer events, etc.

* We had 94% personal voluntarism rate in 2019 for a population of 4,000 employees.

*No copyright infringements intended:

The kids from Don Bosco Calauan are singing the song "Thank you, Ang Babait Ninyo" which is the beautiful ABS-CBN station ID during Christmas 2014.