The Holiday season is a special time for everyone. I mean, it’s called the most wonderful time of the year for a reason. It’s when we gather with our loved ones and spend quality time together. But it’s also a time to reflect on the year that passed, be thankful for our blessings, and spread kindness as far as possible. Boldr celebrated the holidays by giving back is part of our purpose. To end the year on a good note, we decided to celebrate the holidays by doing what we love the most: impact projects! Here’s everything we did:
Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree: A Kid’s Party At Blessed Kids Learning Center
Right now, children need us now more than ever. They have been growing up in a pandemic, and their fundamental rights to health, education, and protection have been under threat. For this reason, we raised funds for One Child, to sponsor the holistic development of 47 Tagalog and Dumagat children for one year. Added to this, the Blessed Kids Learning center organized a Christmas party for the kids, which we gratefully attended as guests. During the party, children played games and received Christmas presents! It was a fun moment rocking around the Christmas tree for everyone involved.
How Our Team Members Uplifted The Holiday Spirit
As we’ve mentioned before, kindred spirits tend to find each other. This is why we have a company full of impact-driven Boldranians, all of whom are able to propose their own impact projects and carry them out with full support from the impact team and the rest of the company.
We’re proud to say that most of the impact projects brought to life this Holiday season came from the heart of our team members. Here they are:
Becoming Santa Claus
‘Twas a foggy Christmas morning… Just kidding, but this really happened on December 25, 2021, also known as Christmas Day.
The ALJC-Acts Evangelism Church conducted their yearly event called “Kids’ Day.” They invited as many kids as possible around Cardona for a wonderful puppet show. Our Boldranian, Katherine Reyes, who volunteers for the ALJC-Acts Evangelism Church, became Santa Claus for that day! She helped organize the Gift-giving Program for the little children. The gifts? A wide selection of toys and financial support!
Boldr contributed by collecting toy donations from our team members and by donating financial aid. By the time this project ended, the ALJC-Acts Evangelism Church was able to send gifts to more than 100 children in Cardona and Taytay, Rizal. Talk about Christmas spirit!
Share A Care
Angelie Bautista, one of our customer advocates, proposed supporting the Macabebe High School “Share A Care” project. And we did! We aided in the distribution of 150 food packs and 100 school kits to the people of Barrio Sapang Uwak, Porac, Pampanga.
This event was organized by the student government, administrators, and teachers of the Macabebe High School. The food packs consisted of rice, pasta noodles, corned beef, spaghetti sauce, coffee, and sugar for their Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) celebration. The school kits consisted of pencils, notebooks, paper, and crayons. These kits will support the learning needs of 100 kids in the Barrio Sapang Uwak, Porac, Pampanga! Definitely, sharing is caring.
Spreading Joy & Cheer
We are really proud of our team member, Daniel Cosico, for bringing to our attention the opportunity to help the Revelation City Church with their Christmas Joy Project. For the past 7 years, Revelation City Church has been giving holistic interventions to urban poor families in Sampaloc, Manila. Among their programs is the Christmas Joy Project, which is the one we participated in by sponsoring the Noche Buena package for 30 of these families. We’re delighted to have helped one of our team members spread joy during this season.
Becoming Santa’s Little Helpers
Our team member Dexter Martinez is an active volunteer and donor of Friends for Keeps, an informal organization dedicated to children’s growth and spiritual development. Over the holidays, Friends for Keeps organized a toy distribution and feeding program for 100 kids in
Marianville, Bay, Laguna. We became Santa’s helpers by contributing with food donations and toys for the kids!
Light of Christmas
Our Boldranian, Jireh Escano, spearheads a foundation’s annual Liwanag Ng Pasko, a gift-giving and feeding program focused on spreading Christmas cheer to students in Uyong, Labrador, Pangasinan. Holiday fact: Liwanag Ng Pasko literally translates to Light of Christmas!
Thanks to Jireh Escano, we had the opportunity to donate school supplies and Noche Buena baskets to students and families in Uyong, Labrador, Pangasinan.
A Christmas Feast: Providing Community Pantry Support
In the past, we’ve always supported community pantries organized by our team members. Some of these pantries were organized as holiday celebrations and others were part of disaster response efforts.
Food Packs for Sagkahan,Tacloban
Our team member, Shar Austero, helped distribute around 250 food packs and 100 goody packs for kids in Tacloban.
Infanta Community Pantry
Lorie has been setting up an occasional community pantry in her neighborhood in Infanta, Pangasinan since June 2021, with support from her family, local church, and Boldr. They distributed around 100 food packs with grocery essentials and candy tumblers for kids.
The Noche Buena Project
Katherine Bulan, a former Boldr employee who was Manager for Data Science and Engineering in Boldr, is the organizer of “The Noche Buena Project”. This project distributes Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) packages to impoverished communities in the Philippines during the Christmas season. Even though Kat is no longer associated with Boldr, we love to keep supporting her with the Noche Buena Project. This Christmas season, we sponsored packages for 35 families!
Good Neighbors Sitio Bakal Community Development Project
Sitio Bakal is a remote community of roughly 300-400 households located within Barangay Bagong Silangan in Quezon City, Philippines. Based on data from the National Poverty Commission and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, it is one of the most marginalized urban communities within Metro Manila. These factors prompted GNIP to make Sitio Bakal a strategic area of intervention with the ultimate goal of ensuring the wellbeing of residents, particularly that of the children in the area.
For this annual celebration, the Good Neighbors NGO organized a Noche Buena donation to families in Sitio Bakal. Boldr sponsored the Noche Buena package for 30 families.
New Life Church Tacloban Typhoon Odette Response
MJ Gadin is a volunteer at this church and sought support to purchase goods for the people of Southern Leyte that were affected by Super Typhoon Odette, a powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone that struck the Philippines. It was also the strongest storm of 2021, strengthening from a Category 1 to a Category 5 typhoon in just one day, making storm preparations and evacuations difficult. The typhoon increased by 85 mph in 24 hours, more than 300,000 people evacuated ahead of landfall, and millions were affected.
Sitio Manokan Community Pantry
Reymund, who has participated in our impact projects before, organized a pantry to distribute relief goods to his neighborhood. This area was amongst those most ravaged by Super Typhoon Odette.
Art Relief Mobile Kitchen
Art Relief Mobile Kitchen is a group of volunteers whose creed is to feed the hungry through community kitchens. They respond to disasters by providing hot meals to communities. We donated 400 individual meals for the victims of Super Typhoon Odette.
There’s More Work to Be Done
In our opinion, there’s no better way to say goodbye to 2021 than by making a difference through our end-of-year impact projects.
To summarize, we’re happy and proud of our work. But we’re not yet satisfied. In 2022, we will keep striving to become a positive influence for our communities, clients, and coworkers. Our goal is to find more ways to grow and connect, help others, and give back to our communities. Here is a big thank you to everyone involved who helped us end 2021 with the highest note possible!
