Jonalyn’s Story
Within weeks of the start of school, Jonalyn’s mother died. How would the family manage? What would happen to this young girl? With the love and support of the teachers, as well as neighbors who fulfilled the family’s volunteer hours, Jonalyn emerged a well-spoken, hardworking young woman. She was elected to serve as student council president. Without the FHM opportunity, think how life might have unfolded for this 9-year-old sister without a mom.

Read about Jonalyn’s goals.

Roseanne’s Story
Roseanne and her sister have long lived on the edge. Their father died when they were young. In the hardship that followed, the girls ran away because there was no food at home. For a while they lived with nuns. Living again with their mother, TB threatened the family. With support from the FHM social work partner, her mother has now been cured of TB.

Family feels precious — and precarious. Read the poem she wrote in the 5th grade below. This bright, talented poet now has a road forward in life.  

	Read Roseanne’s poem in English.
	Read Roseanne’s poem in Filipino.

Here’s what they wrote when the students were asked to write about a time when they helped others.

“The books that you gave me made me win in our Barangay Story-telling Contest. Then, the librarian asked me to tell my stories to the kids there. After a month, I got an award. They gave me a medal. Now I also tell my siblings the stories that I have read in school. I share the lessons that I have learned in school.” — April

“On some Saturdays we tutored other children. I shared my knowledge with them and the lessons I learned from the FHMS teachers. I realized that it's hard to be a teacher, but I felt as if I were floating in the clouds afterwards.” — Roseanne

“We helped our barangay clean our community. We went around to make sure hat our community is clean so we won't get sick. I help a lot of people because this is what I learned from Food for Hungry Minds School, especially from our teachers and Navitaire.” — Shyleth

“I became a tutor of a Grade Two student. My student was naughty. That made the tutorial more exciting because we're the same.” — Rommel

“I was amazed when I gave exercises to the child I was tutoring. She always got perfect scores, so I always bought lolliops for her. When I stopped teaching her I missed her so much. Now I realized how much a teacher loves to teach children because of their intelligence and power to understand things.” — Millrose

“In the summer we taught some children from other schools. They were in Grades 1 to 5. I taught them how to get the area and the perimeter of a polygon and I gave prizes to them.” — Donnie Ray

“I remember when we taught other children from our community. At first I thought that it would be very complicated and tiring. I didn't know what I would teach them. I took a deep breath and in the end I felt comfortable. Somehow I know that they learned something new from me.” — Jonalyn