Awareness and donation sustainability for Project Bente Organization Inc.

• Main Author: Sarmiento, Joshua Jeru V.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2020
• Subjects: School children—Food; School breakfast programs; Project Bente Organization Inc. (Philippines); Nonprofit organizations—Philippines—Marketing; Civic and Community Engagement
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6034; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/13136/viewcontent/Sarmiento_JoshuaJeru_11699728_Awareness_DonationSustainabilityforProjectBente_Redacted.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Project Bente Organization Inc. is a non-profit organization that originated from Pampanga City. It started with a group of high-school friends who saw the need to help financially challenged students to stay in school by providing free meals. Our aim is to empower people to give and extend support for nation building. We believe that the solutions to our problems in the community are also within the community. That everyone could make a difference, even by donating a small amount. We have three core programs such as Meal of Hope, Bags of Joy, and Alay Paskuhan. In this action research, our focus is on Meal of Hope program, which is the initiative that supports financially challenged students to continue with their studies by providing daily free meals, which we extended to help the families heavily affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. It includes the families of all the beneficiaries under Meal of Hope program and the blue collar workers who supports our organization, but are now also in need of assistance to surpass these unforeseen difficulties, and several other communities living in poverty. The two short-term objectives that we want to accomplish are (1) to be present in two schools in Pampanga by school year 2020-2021 or to increase the capacity to support students under Meal of Hope program from five students to at least seven beneficiaries, and (2) to sustain our existing sponsors and gain new ones in order to increase the number of beneficiaries under Meal of Hope. This takes us closer to our long-term goals such as (1) to have 30 students across different public schools by 2030, and (2) to have at least five students in every public school in Luzon by 2040. We developed an Advocacy Plan which aims to increase awareness about Project Bente as an organization and its Meal of Hope program, which led to more donations. With sustainable financial support from donors, we could help more students to stay in school and fulfill their dreams. We believe that education is important to uplift the community, and this is our way to make an impact to our future generations. We hope that the students we have assisted will eventually give back to other students when they are more financially able. In addition, as response to the Coronavirus pandemic, we conducted a fundraising to help those who are in dire need of basic necessities such as food. This program is in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and in line with our Meal of Hope campaign, which aims to provide food to those who are in need and to support the community. It significantly helped us to increase awareness about our organization, since we were able to communicate our cause and mission, while providing much needed assistance to many Filipino families. The amount of donations received surpassed the target that we set prior the campaign. The action research taught me to use different tools such as ORJI (observation, reaction, judgement, intervention), double column, ladder of inference, types of inquiries, importance of journaling, and many others. The collaborative nature also helped me become better in terms of working alongside others who have diverse ideas that comes from different backgrounds. In the process, I have also learned the importance of respect and patience, that not all our plans will go accordingly based from our timeline. Most significant is that we learned from each other and we are able to help more students in need of support, while also providing much needed assistance to those families who were devastated by the Coronavirus pandemic.