Feeding Program

Just the other day I was at 7-11 when a street kid asked for money. I wasn’t bothered but I felt pity for the kid. I bought him a cup noodles and asked him where his parents are. He said his mother is in prison and his father is at home and has been sick for how long, I don’t know. 

My mother don’t usually do charity works. After going to the grocery, we dropped by the drug store to buy some vitamins and there were kids begging for money, (this was way back 90s - I was still a kid), she asked me to give some of my food to the street kids. Well I did give my food and since then, I give food to whoever street kid I see, that is if I have enough money. I guess this is why I got into charity but not a fully volunteer for charity because I don’t have that much money. Even when I was working, I am “sort of” taking care of an old lady in our office. She’s a friend of our boss. She visits the office almost every day, borrowing money to buy her food and medicines. At times I treat her to lunch or a snack. Too bad I don’t know where she is now.

We have a neighbor with 6 kids, both parents are unemployed but the father works part time (irregular) as a carpenter and gets paid at P250. Only three out of the six kids go to school. On some days, they both can go and sometimes one can’t go and the other kid can go to school. Man, it’s just like an odd-even scheme. One of the kids always asks for the garbage to be dumped, then I would give P5 for taking out the trash. Their youngest kid always runs to my granny’s to ask for food. Most of the time we see the youngest kid, running after their father, arched back with his hand on his starving tummy, asking for money to buy food, but no luck.  When I go to the market, I would bring with me one of the kids, and feed him/her to help me carry the bags or by just simply accompanying me to the market. Most of the time I give them some of the excess food we have.

So, I thought of putting up a feeding program. I want it to be a simple feeding program; not publicly done, but surely can help feed even a few kids.. In a few days, I will post their pictures here and add a few details.