Let's Help Them Get Ready for School

My Name is Edwin Nombre, i am working as an independent actor in the Philippines for already 18 years, but every week i also try to do 7 other jobs to make sure i will earn enough for my family as the work of an actor is not always present.

I created a small project in the poor community of San Andres Bukid where i live, i called it TRUE MANILA it is a community project that helps the street kids, the poor kids and families living under poverty in different places in the Philippines. It started by feeding at least one street kid every single day. Then my friends all over the world started joining one by one to help more and more street kids and family living under poverty.

Since 2007 when we started, giving just a little amount of what help our friends can afford even if it was just an excess food that we have at home or used school bags, school uniform or clothes, we share it and then by 2010 when True Manila on facebook started, we started posting the help that we are giving to these kids on facebook so the person who send the help to them can quickly see how their help reached these kids, families and everyone else and they can also share it so other can inspire to do the same.

The little projects kept spreading and then we continued by sending street kids to school by providing them with school supplies, bags, school uniforms and feeding them everyday before they go to school. We also pay their school projects and other expenses that they have to pay.

Most of the kids that we are choosing to help are abandoned or living alone after their parents died and some got arrested due to selling and using illegal drugs. Some kids are living under poverty and working at a very young age, but still they cannot afford everyday expenses but they still try to go to school despite of their situation.

Since then every year we are sharing school supplies to get the kids ready for school, more than ten years ago, we can only share 10 Bags full of School Supplies and school uniform to street kids, but we never stop even if we can only share small help. The important is there are help to share.

This year we will do it again, but we thought that if True Manila has 22,000 followers now, why not encourage all of them by sharing as many school supplies to as many kids as possible, and if only half or 11,000 friends will help, that is already a success! but we will not only share it in Manila but also to some provinces where help is also needed.

Almost two years ago, a Swiss Family even brought the School Supplies from Switzerland personally. You can also do the same.
They shared a  Solar Powered Calculator with Ruler and donate an amount that can help us share 2,000 Notebooks, 20pcs. Backpaks for Higschool and 100pcs. Cartoon Themed Bags for Elementary and a lot of Ballpens, Eraser, Sharpener , Scissors and Pencil. Everything was shared and posted on facebook page of True Manila.

This year we will also share food, school uniforms and even help in fixing a school or sharing electric fans, reading books, broom, dustpan, or even computer and printer that they can use in school.
We already started in True Manila Community since May 1, 2019 until today we already shared 1,500 notebooks , 150 Bags and more school supplies in total.

WE NEED YOUR HELP to REACH the goal of bringing 11,000 school supplies from Manila to other part of the Philippines.
Some Teachers are sending us messages and letting us know what help they need for the students specially those who live in small towns and small schools in provinces.

Every help that you will give will be shared to our facebook page True Manila, we will also form a small team who can help us in distributing all of this school supplies around the Philippines.

The team will be my son, my daughter and my adopted son, using a Van, we will fill this with a lot of School Supplies and we will start driving from Manila to other provinces until we reached those who need your help with Education. This is also the only way i can help but making sure that i can also spend time with my kids without leaving them behind and showing them how they can do the same maybe when they grow up. We will go and visit places that we have never been before, so we can meet more kids to help.

I will create a LIVE VIDEO or a LIVE VLOG about how we are sharing this school supplies from one place to another.

We will call the project " True Manila Back to School Caravan " from Manila to South Luzon to Vizayas. We will do this for a minimum of 10 days and if more people will help, we will continue until Day 15 before i leave the Philippines and work abroad to support my own kids with their Education.

Here are the Items that we wanted to share to each Students and their Prices that you can choose from whatever you can afford to donate.

                                  GRADE 4 to GRADE 12
220 pesos/$4.23cents     - 1 Backpack
 112 pesos/$2.15cents     - 9 Notebooks
   30 pesos/$0.57cents     - 3 pieces of BallPen
   20 pesos/$0.38cents     - 1 piece of Pad Paper
   20 pesos/$0.38cents     - 1 Ruler & 1 Scissor
------
  402pesos/$7.70cents TOTAL

                                  GRADE 1 to GRADE 3
195 pesos/$3.75cents     - 1 Backpack
 112 pesos/$2.15cents     - 9 Notebooks
   10 pesos/$0.19cents     - 2 pieces of Pencil
   10 pesos/$0.19cents     - 1 piece of Pad Paper
   40 pesos/$0.76cents     - 1 Ruler, 1 Eraser & 1 Sharpener
   30 pesos/$0.57cents     - 1 Crayons & 1 Scissor
------
 397pesos/$7.63cents TOTAL

If you want to donate by bulk, here is a quick computation:

$100/5,200pesos     - 420 pieces of Notebooks
$100/5,200pesos     - 1,040 pieces of Ballpen or Pencil
$300/10,400pesos  - 23Backpacks/HighSchool/26 Bags for Elemntary

TRANSPORTATION Cost to Bring all of this to the Provinces

37,500 pesos/$576.00     - Provincial Rent of a Van for 10 to 15 days
10,000 pesos/$190.00     - Fuel for 10 to 15 days Manila-Leyte-Manila

The GOAL is to Share as much as...

- 1,000 School Bags 
- 9,000 Notebooks
- 300pieces of Electric Fans
- 1000 kilos of Rice
- Feed 2000 Kids with Apples or cooked food that we can buy from the Locals to support them with their small businesses.
- Help fix some schools that needs to be fixed.

In order to make this affordable, we will buy this from the community in the Public Market and other public markets wherever we go to support them with their Small Businesses. 

We know that to help one person with this whole amount is not that easy, so we put the exact amount here, so you can choose whatever you can only afford to share. 

Any help is a big help if we put it all together, so do not be shy to share even if it is only 1 piece of Pencil.

Imagine if only Half of the 22,000 followers of True Manila will donate 1piece of Notebook each, this can be an amazing way to see how small help can become big if put together!
We haven't tried it before, so we want to see if we can make it happen this year!

We will begin the Caravan from June 5 onwards. The fund raising will continue as we continue moving forward every single day and will continue even if i am not around. We have True Manila Volunteers who can help in sharing the school supplies in different places even when i am not around.  

A popular person once said...
Dream Big as it attracts Big Ideas and Big Success! We aim to Dream Big for this  year, from 50 school supplies to 11,000 school supplies Goal! We can do it if we all work together in One Full Force.

Please Help Us So We Can Help the Students with their Education and it all begins by having their own School Supplies.

Thank You, 

Edwin Nombre Pamanian