Based on the results of the fundraising event, the short-term benefits of the project have been achieved. Firstly, the group was able to donate proceeds to the Foundation for the benefit of PGH charity patients. Secondly, the creation of the zine has provided an avenue for student artists and writers to showcase their creativity and other skills to a wider audience. Lastly, through the promotion of this project, the group believes that we have instilled a greater awareness on the issue of health inaccessibility in the Philippines; thus, a lot of people were encouraged to support our cause by purchasing the zine or simply donating.

The group also believes that over time, the short-term benefits listed above would translate into long-term ones. Firstly, the group trusts in the Foundation’s work to utilize the donated proceeds to further facilitate medical services for charity patients, so the PGH will be able to serve more of them. Secondly, as artists and writers submitted their works for the zine, it is expected that they would attain greater artist exposure not only in the local art community, but also to the general public. This is reinforced by including their social media accounts into their works, so that people can easily look up more of their works. For student artists who also accept commissions, this exposure may also translate into additional profit. Lastly, the group believes that by publicizing their efforts to help the Foundation, more people will be encouraged to also take similar initiatives to not only provide financial and material support to the PGH but also to campaign for a better public health sector in the country.

Florilegium is a sustainable project that can be continued by future batches for their Social Science 6 project or for the mere act of philanthropy. The group’s hopes are high that they would be able to sustain the flowers that we and the previous installments have taken care of and grown.

                As such, the group strived to streamline the project methodology as reference and point for improvement in the next installments. Although social media accounts for the project would be returned to the original owners (Ms. Araña and other heads), the next batches could request access for these accounts for them to promote in an existing online community. Documents, publication materials, and other assets were also reorganized in the group’s GDrive folder so that these can be easily shared to people who would like to continue the project. Lastly, the group also decided to remain open for questions even after the end of this installment to provide insights in making the zine and implementing the actual fundraising events.

               The group would recommend that the most sustainable implementation of the fundraiser should incorporate the selling of a digital zine and a supplementary fundraising activity conducted in-person (e.g. selling physical prints). From experience, this setup has produced the least amount of costs with a relatively high amount of revenue.

Healthcare inaccessibility, especially among Filipinos with lower socioeconomic statuses, has been a longstanding issue that the Philippine public health sector faces. The PGH is no exception to this. As a tertiary care hospital and a primary COVID referral center, the hospital not being able to provide the highest quality care for its patients due to the ever-growing backlogs of the hospital takes a huge toll on healthcare accessibility in the country. Because of this, organizations such as the PGHMFI aims to close the gap between the patient and quality care caused by healthcare inaccessibility by providing services and products that are only available outside the hospital to indigent patients of the PGH. Through Florilegium, an art and literary zine, donations are generated to help fuel the Foundation’s causes.

Despite the success of Florilegium 2023, there are still points to improve on. In terms of the nature of the project itself, we believe that it may be beneficial if future pursuers of Florilegium would widen their social media reach. The project’s social media presence was mostly limited to the committee members and their acquaintances only. Despite accumulating a generous amount of contributors for the zine, this year’s committee felt like it could be larger if knowledge and awareness regarding the Florilegium Project was more available to the student body.

From a financial standpoint, this year’s run was initially purely dependent on zine sales. This year’s set of committee members were not able to properly reach out to sponsors and partners unlike the previous committees. As a consequence, Florilegium 2023 was not able to garner much of a presence, especially online which in turn has impacted the initial growth of sales. The sales only started to pick up after the introduction of the pop-up booth. Thus, we recommend that those who will continue this project in the future shall look into more ways to garner funds aside from the zine sales whether through sourcing sponsors, partnering with similar advocacies, continuing the physical pop-up sales booth, or any other initiatives that they may come up with.