Reprinted from the Visayan Daily Star. See original article
More than 200 volunteers of all sizes and ages gathered to pack 1,500 LoveBags for the Negrense Volunteers for Change at the SM City Bacolod’s Activity Center Saturday. The bags filled with school supplies will be sent to children of indigenous minority communities who walk kilometers to school through hills, valleys and rivers, NVC president Millie Kilayko said.
The volunteers, coming from a variety of jobs or enrolled in different schools, packed the bags with thousands of notebooks and writing pads, pencils, glue, rulers, scissors, crayons and colored paper.
NVC’s young ambassador Abram Bisuña called the event one of the biggest days of his life. He turned over a P90,000 check to NVC representing funds he collected from children and adults, enough to provide 120 children with LoveBags.
Fifty-eight of the LoveBags from 20 grade five pupils from a Swiss village school came with handwritten love letters from their little donors.
Kilayko thanked SM City Bacolod and Nep Garrido Grandea for the partnership, and the donors – Balsam Hill employees in the USA, school children in Switzerland, a cartoonist in the Philippines, and a big bunch of loving hearts who donated the LoveBags.
The second LoveBag packing event will be held in June, she added.
Five-year-old volunteers Morgan Benares, Vincent Acuyong, and Saulo Inigo