This past week was dominated by two big literacy projects: Puerto Princesa School Division and Palawan School Division School Based Tutoring projects . We flew to Puerto Princesa on Monday evening and were pleasantly surprised by how nice the hotel was. It was a very comfortable place to call “home” for a few days. And of course they had a pool, which was very welcome after tiring days. On Tuesday morning, we went to the Stake Center to begin the task of sorting and distributing the goods to 80 schools. Since there was 225 boxes of stuff, this was no small task!! Thanks heavens for the amazing members of the Stake who SHOWED UP big time. We had over 40 people helping us on Tuesday and most of them stayed from 8 am until nearly 3 pm. Can you imagine if we didn’t have their help? They assembled all of the tutor bags, divided up the books into the plastic tubs, then we all checked the lists to make sure we got the right amount of everything set out for each school. We were originally thinking we would have the training in the cultural hall, but soon realized the stuff would take up the entire large room, and then some. Our helpers were truly so amazing. They had a team of people at the end who went around and did quality control- making sure everything was where it should be.

President Baniago, the Stake President was such a humble worker. In the picture above, you can see him mopping the floor when everything was sorted. On the second day of our training his wife made the snacks for 80 people and the lunch as well! And that was with one day notice! There was a group of ladies that showed up for all three days . They just really loved serving and being a part of things. Wednesday was the training for the Palawan Division. They had chosen 50 schools to take part in the pilot for the tutoring program so they had school heads and the reading coordinator from each school there. In all, I think there were 100 people that day. On Thursday, the Puerto Princesa Division had around 75 or 80 people show up. Our trainers, John and Edward, came up from Sarangani (Mindanao) to lead the training. John helped develop the program and they have seen such good success with it. We have refined the training so it gets better each time. I suggested they tell some personal success stories about the program, so they did and that was really helpful. Also, I developed a little short presentation about being “All In” and really committing to the program. I even had them do the hokey-pokey where they put their whole selves in (what can I say, I was an elementary school teacher). The teachers and staff were so appreciative and seemed so excited to have all their “stuff”. Now to see if they really utilize it and get their tutoring programs going!