Investing Habits

The Children’s Hour Cebu Relaunch happened last January 21, 2011 at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel Friday night, wherein many of cebu’s top businesses and entrepreneurs gathered for a cause.

Ma. Elena “Ballsy” Aquino-Cruz, sister of President Benigno Aquino III, joined the gathering as the Guest of Honor and Keynote where a benefit dinner, silent auction and turnover ceremony of donations to the Children’s Hour Philippines Inc. (CHPI) were held.

The CHPI, a fund-raising and grant-giving non-profit organization, turned over to the Ayala Business Club Inc. a check worth P1 million, to be used for children’s projects, particularly on health and education.

Children’s Hour Briefer:

Children’s Hour is a non-profit fundraising and grant-giving organization. We raise funds mainly by asking individuals and companies to donate at least one hour of their earnings once a year. We then deploy these funds to carefully selected projects that help children in the areas of education, food, shelter, protection and total development.

The idea behind Children’s Hour is both simple and equitable. We provide people of all ages, backgrounds and professions an easy way to be a donor. Whether you earn P5, 000 an hour or the minimum wage, it makes no difference. Each one is important in the community effort to improve children’s lives

For those who want to take action, they offer a simple but effective way to help – give one hour of your earnings to our projects for children. Whether it’s P10 or P100, P50 or P500, your earnings can make a significant impact on a child’s life. They seek to encourage our countrymen to share their one hour’s worth of earnings even just for once a year.

During the event, the Golden ABC donated P1.044 million to the organization. Other donors were the Ayala Corp., Globe Telecom, Honda Cebu, Ayala Center Cebu, Isuzu Mandaue and the Cebu City Marriott Hotel. Also, the money generated from the silent auction, which included clothing items, watches and art pieces, will go to Children’s Hour Philippines, Inc..

Committed in giving the Filipino child the basic right to enjoy a happy, safe and fulfilling future, the Children’s Hour campaign has funded 545 projects that benefited 609,617 children nationwide from 1999 to June 2010. During the same period, the campaign has raised P178 million from 1,280 companies, institutions and individuals. In Cebu, CHPI chair Emily Abrera said, the organization has raised over P5 million, benefiting nearly 9,000 children since 1999.

The Goal

The goal is to reach out to children in rural areas by covering more provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao.”

Quick History

The Children’s Hour campaign began in the United Kingdom as “Children’s Promise,” an end-of-the-millennium fundraising campaign led by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sir Richard Greenbury of Marks & Spencer and the New Millennium Experience Company.

Top businessman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala brought the campaign to the Philippines and got the support of some 83,112 individuals and 391 companies nationwide.

By the end of the millennium, the campaign raised more than P30 million and benefited 23 charities, which included the Bantay Bata, Tabang Mindanaw II, International Deaf Education Association, Kamalayan Development Foundation, Bulig Foundation and the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children Project. More projects HERE.

“Business is not merely for profit, but also for nation-building,” -Golden ABC chief executive officer Bernie Liu