Fil-Am teen proves that generosity cuts across race, borders and distance

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino-American teen led a group of high school students in California to raise funds for a school feeding program in the Philippines.

Richie Ang, a junior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California, and his co-members at a school club called Youth for Kids or YAK, raised $100 from their one day of face painting activity and donated this to Jollibee Foundation’s Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT) program – an-in-school feeding program that enables schoolchildren from 1st and 2nd grades in 250 schools to stay in school by providing them free nutritious meal everyday.

Letty Ang, Riche’s mother, admits to being surprised when her son came home from school one day and excitedly handed her 100 $1 bills inside a tattered envelope and requested that she give them to Jollibee Foundation to (in his own words) “feed the hungry children in the Philippines.”

Now on its fourth year, the BLT program provides daily lunch for Grades 1 and 2 pupils in select schools with “below normal weight-for-age” for about eight months of the school year. Meals are prepared by the schoolchildren’s parents based on low cost and nutritious menus.

Jollibee Foundation partnered with Ayala Foundation USA to raise funds for the school feeding program, through the Feed the Future in-school feeding program. Jollibee and Red Ribbon stores in the states of Nevada and California have also put up donation cans in their check-out counters, where patrons can drop their contributions.

“We believe that many of our Fil-Am customers in the United States are looking for ways to contribute to something worthwhile back home,” notes Grace Tan Caktiong, president of Jollibee Foundation. “Through our partnership with Ayala Foundation USA, our stores can now serve as channels for making that possible.”

The fundraising campaign in the two states, which lasted from November 2009 to February this year, raised $5,500. This amount will be used to support 250 schools for school year 2010-2011.

Encouraged by the huge success of the three-month campaign, Jollibee Foundation and Ayala Foundation USA plan to do it again, this time in more stores, in the United States.