Project PEARLS turned the weekly feeding program to a “Daily Soup Kitchen”. The aim is to provide healthy meals to the most malnourished kids and to ensure that they do not go to school with empty stomachs.
For children living in extreme poverty, breakfast can be their one and only meal. A meal that can define if they will survive or not.
This is the heartbreaking reality that Project PEARLS aims to change. Through our Feeding Programs, we want to provide a delicious and nutritious meal to children to help decrease the incidence of malnutrition. This is done everyday in Helping Land, a slum community in Tondo, Manila. Helping Land sits on an active dumpsite and is home to hundreds of families whose main source of livelihood is scavenging from garbage. Most of them fill their hunger by relying on “pagpag” – leftover food from restaurants scavenged from trash. In Filipino, “pagpag” literally means “to shake-off”, and this refers to shaking the dirt, maggots, and flies off the edible portion of the leftovers. Not only the children do not get the nutritional requirements they need, but they are also very prone to food-borne diseases which, often, can be fatal. (For more information about this, please visit this
article.)
We also have the Reading and Toy Library which we open for the kids after the feeding. More than just toys, this educational space serves as a tool in enhancing the child's creativity and imagination, and it creates meaningful social interactions.
We need volunteers who can help us in setting up the feeding area, distributing the food, and supervising the children while they are playing. We welcome volunteers who love playing and interacting with kids especially during our dancing exercise!
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Join us from Tuesday to Friday, 7:30 am to 10:00am.
Where to meet:
Canossa Foundation - Scoulla Della Gioia (https://goo.gl/maps/j4i4YdNwpn72 ) a red day care center along Radial Road 10, Brgy. 105, Tondo, Manila, at 7:30am
What to remember:
- If you would like to bring something for the kids, its fine as long as it’s good for 300 kids (for weekends) or 200 kids (for weekdays)
- No inappropriate clothing (short shorts, crop tops, etc.), we do not have any specific color coding and please wear shoes that can get dirty or boots especially if it will be a rainy day.
- There will also be a briefing before the start of the program so each volunteer will be assigned to the tasks accordingly
- Bring water so you can be hydrated all the time!
Who to contact: DSK Volunteer Coordinator, Ardee at 09661576844 / ardeedimaranan@gmail.com | Kindly mention that you got his number or email address from IVolunteer website.
Check out updates and more about our various outreach programs at our:
Website: www. projectpearls.org
FB page: www.facebook.com/ProjectPEARLS1
Instagram: @projectpearls
Twitter: @projectpearls1
