Cebu City, Philippines
Twice a month, our volunteers arrive in Cebu City's under-resourced neighborhoods carrying two things: a stack of beautiful books and enough snacks for every child who shows up. We read together, we eat together, and every child walks home holding a book that is theirs to keep.
The children we work with are fighting two battles at once. Each one makes the other worse, and neither is their fault.
Most of the children we meet own only one or two books. That is enough to spark a love of reading, but not enough to sustain it. A young reader needs a growing shelf, and when home cannot provide one, the momentum fades before school can build on it.
9 in 10
Filipino ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple story.
World Bank / UNESCO / UNICEF, 2022, Annex 5, p. 69 (90.9%)An empty stomach is louder than any story. Hunger steals attention, memory, and energy, the very things a child needs to learn.
1 in 4
Filipino children under five are stunted by chronic undernutrition.
UNICEF / DOST-FNRI, 2023 Expanded National Nutrition Survey (23.6%)Grounded in truth: the numbers above come from public, independent research. Follow the source links to read them for yourself.
Our model is simple on purpose. Twice a month, in the same communities, our volunteer mentors show up and keep showing up. Three steps, every visit.
Thirty minutes of read-aloud storytelling, with all the voices and sound effects our volunteers can muster. The goal is simple: make books feel like joy.
A nutritious snack for every single child, no exceptions, shared together like a meal among friends. Nobody learns hungry.
Then the best part. Each child picks one high-quality book to keep, forever. Visit by visit, a real library grows at home.
Every session ends the same way: children fed and reading, one more book on a home shelf, and young readers asking when we will be back. We are counting our current cycle now and will share the real numbers here soon.
Books, snacks, and transportation cost money, and we stretch every peso until it squeaks. One sponsorship keeps an entire community's sessions running: the stories, the snacks, and the books the kids take home. We are raising funds for our next cycle so we can say yes to more neighborhoods that have been waiting for us.