Gentlemen's
Food Drive

Community

Background

Gentle Hands Orphanage is an International Organization whose goal is to "provide family-style care and hope for children who have experienced trauma". They provide a Christ-centered environment for children who in most cases would be left hungry on the streets.

Gentle Hands Orphanage

History

Dennis and Denie Heppner founded Gentle Hands Inc. in 1993 as a non-government organization (NGO) birthing clinic for women who couldn't afford to properly give birth. Eventually their long stay in Asia led them to transition into an orphanage for children.

Mission

Providing family-style care and hope for children who have experienced trauma

Vision

Be a center for rescue and healing of children in crisis

Location

Address

27 F. Castillo, Project 4 Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila

Entrance

Objectives

Increase local awareness on the existing struggles of Filipino Orphans.

Create a system wherein PSHS students are able to donate and volunteer for their community easier.

Provide food and basic necessities for the orphans.

Provide healthy food recipes and menus for the children.

Advocacy

By conducting a food drive and sharing recipes with the chosen orphanage, the nutritional well-being of the orphans ought to improve and alleviate the struggles faced by these orphans in another way.

In contrast to some other organizations which aim to help improve the adoption rates in the country, our project aimed to improve upon the current lifestyle of the orphans and help them to stand firmly on their own.

Needs Assessment

Upon arrival, we were given a tour through the orphanage starting from the ground floor where the children reside up to their top floor where their activities were held.

We were also oriented on the children's daily schedule and a brief look into their system for raising the children. We finished the tour by going to their kitchen and interviewing them about their meal layout.

For breakfasts, they have a standard breakfast; for lunch, they serve all vegetables; for dinner, they cook meals consisting of freshly bought meat; and lastly, for meriendas, they bake their own bread.

The kitchen staff were then asked what they were lacking to find a focus on our donations. They answered that they were lacking in mostly baking related equipment and ingredients. Aside from those, they also requested diapers for the babies, rice to cook, and ham/hotdogs for their meals.

Implementation

Timeline

Initial Search for Community - 10/7/22

The group consulted with several teachers and peers for communities and organizations within the vicinity of Pisay.

The group discovered two communities, namely, Gentle Hands Orphanage and He Cares Mission.

Both communities were then contacted through provided email addresses and phone numbers.

Collection of Funds (12/05/22 - 03/15/23)

The main source of funds collected for the project were from donations.

Donations were requested via social media. Pubmats were posted in the Facebook group Pisay Direct 22 - 23.

The group also reached out through direct messaging to their own personal contacts.

11/30/22 - Finalization of Community

The group did prospective planning of what we could contribute to either communities.

Taking into consideration location, ease of communication, skills of members, and community advocacy, the group decided on Gentle Hands Orphanage

Gentle Hands Orphanage also has had a history of allowing students to conduct similar projects to ours.

03/15/23 - Preparation for Community Visit

We came up with three activities to hold during our main activity day. For the “Reason of the Activity”, we stated that we wanted to “propagate healthy eating through the use of fun activities that will be easy for the children to participate in”.

For our first activity, we proposed to hold a Healthy Foods Bingo: we prepared bingo sheets containing healthy foods chosen from a list.

For the main activity, we wanted to have the children prepare a healthy snack for themselves. We would first do a live demonstration for a simple yet healthy snack.

Results

Activities

Activity 1:
Veggie Bingo

Activity 2:
Spring Roll Making

We hosted two activities in one day for Gentle Hands Orphanage:

Veggie Bingo

In this game, the children were given randomized bingo cards with names of fruits and vegetables written on them. We then showed them silhouettes of such fruits and vegetables one by one, and if they guessed it, they get to shade the cell in their bingo card corresponding to it.

Spring Roll Making

For the second activity, one of the members did a short demonstration on how to prepare and serve the spring rolls made of rice wrappers, rice noodles, and a variety of vegetables. The children were then split into six smaller groups where one member assisted each group in rolling up their own spring rolls.

Contribution

We incentivized healthy eating by centering our activities around the topic of vegetables, but we also let the children have fun while learning.

As we wished to improve the quality of life of the orphans, our program contributed to the independence of the orphans: getting to make their own healthy snack which compliments the already healthy lifestyle that Gentle Hands provides, but getting to do it themselves helps shape good habits in an interactive way. This way, even as they grow to leave the orphanage, the activity will leave a lasting positive impact on their lives.

Success Indicators

One of the project's success indicators focused on allowing the children to learn and better understand the importance of nutrition and a healthy diet.

Another indicator heavily depended on the evaluation of the effectivity of our project from Gentle Hands.

Finally, if more groups from PSHS-MC conduct their immersion in Gentle Hands through the Student Catholic Association (SCA)

Financial Report

Gcash Receipt

Gentle Hands Official Receipt

Over the course of the project, a total of P10,800 was collected from various donors. Donations ranged from as low as P300 to as high as P1,500. During the project we also spent a total of P1,500 in order to buy the ingredients needed for our spring roll making activity. The total amount of money spent on the project amounts to P12,300.

Sustainability

Benefits

Short Term

Long Term

Donations to the Orphanage

As mentioned earlier, a total of P10,800 was donated to the orphanage in cash via bank transfer. The orphanage explicitly requested for cash donations if possible, as they can buy the resources themselves using cash, whereas if we donated resources, they may end up having an overstock of those and an understock of other needs.

Healthy Eating Habits

One of the primary objectives of the project was to create healthy eating habits for the orphans. As children, we could not solidly teach them scientific nutrition facts, so we chose to have fun and make it interactive for them by letting them make healthy snacks for themselves.

Continuation

Relationship with the School

In addition to the group, there were actually two student members of the SCA that joined during our implementation.

Our plan to integrate the SCA into our project was admittedly not as organized or prestigious as it was planned to be, but the two students also reportedly enjoyed the activity, one of them being the president of the organization.

On top of that, the caregivers of Gentle Hands said that they really appreciate and enjoy when activities like this are held in their orphanage, and that they were looking forward to working more with groups from Philippine Science. A continued relationship between the two administrations would benefit all parties involved as well.

Conclusion

The project at Gentle Hands orphanage provided orphans an activity where they learned about healthy foods in an interactive manner. They played a guessing game and learned how to make a healthy snack, building a good base understanding of healthy eating and nutrition.

Reflection

Gentle_Hands_Reflection_for_site.mp4

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Gentlemen's Food Drive