Team Reports |
Tell two friends …Warren Wagstaff — North Vancouver, BC
Two friends tell two friends and spread the word. The world of Sleeping Children expands when a friend tells a friend who tells another friend about SCAW’s mission. It is no different here in the Philippines. Twenty-seven years ago, the leader of Team Philippines, Dr. Ito Torres, travelled to Canada to meet Murray Dryden. Out of that two-day visit a lifelong friendship was born. Returning to the Philippines with a pledge he made to Murray Dryden, Dr Ito told two friends and the core of Team Philippines was created. Over the past twenty-seven years, the dream of providing bedkits to needy children remained as constant as have Dr Ito and his two friends. Countless others have joined on as two friends tell two friends. When a natural disaster strikes or where the need is great, Dr. Ito enlists his friends to organize distributions so that children in need are cared for.
Each member of the Philippines team heads and takes care of a distribution site. They organize the site volunteers , having them attend an earlier distribution site so they can learn first hand about crowd control, seating for the children, proper changing rooms, how pictures are taken and how the bedkit is personally delivered to the child recipient. Some teams travel hundreds of kilometres to attend to ensure a happy, orderly distribution. As the group of volunteers expands, so do the requests for distribution sites, as a friend or volunteer or reciepient’s family tells two friends about SCAW. Request after request is received by Dr. Ito’s team — this year alone, over fifty requests. All prospective sites are considered but not all can be accommodated. This year we went to sixteen sites. Using SCAW guidelines, Team Philippines makes the difficult decision about whom will be chosen. Rest assured that thousands of children are sleeping comfortably each night because of you. Let’s all tell two more friends! |
