Family To Family began the School Sponsorship Program on Camiguin Island in June of 1984, shortly after Tom and Diane and family had moved to the island. They had talked to the principals of two public elementary schools near where they were living. At that time, public school was only six years. Both principals told us that they had both attendance and drop out problems. Public school is free, but they said many families had trouble buying the school supplies for their children. And this led to absences, as the children were embarrassed to show up without paper and pen or pencil. Some families had their children take turns going to school – one child would enroll one year and another would enroll the next, while the first child stayed home that year. This leap-frog schooling continued as they worked their way through to the sixth grade. Or more commonly they dropped out before the sixth grade because they were embarrassed to be so far behind their age mates. Some dropped out to help their parents with farming or fishing.

We decided to help out in these two schools. We asked the teachers to select 5 of the most indigent children in each grade level for us to sponsor. We knew the teachers would be most knowledgeable about who were the neediest families. We met with these students and their parents. We told them that we would provide complete school supplies for the entire year. And we told them that this assistance could continue all the way through to grade six, as long as they attended school regularly and passed to the next grade every year. We told them they didn’t have to be honor students, but they needed to work hard and do their best. And most important of all, they must attend every day unless they were sick. The parents and teachers were all delighted.

So that June, when the school year started, we delivered supplies to each classroom consisting of pencils, pens, pad paper, notebooks, scissors, crayons, rulers, colored art paper and white drawing paper. This was distributed by the teachers to the five sponsored children who had been selected for sponsorship in each grade level. Then, every month, we delivered additional supplies of pens, pencils, and pad paper. As the year went on, we received feedback from the teachers and principals that the sponsored students had very good attendance and were studying hard.

A couple of years later, we added two more elementary schools, and gradually, over time more and more schools were added. Then the Department of Education added Kinder (Kindergarten) at all public elementary schools. So we included Kinder in our sponsorship. One thousand and fifty students are now sponsored in thirty schools, which is a little over half of the fifty six schools on the island. We have been thanked by some of these students, now young adults. And they have told us how much our assistance helped them and their families. And the teachers continue to tell us how important this assistance is in keeping these children in school and motivating them to study.

We also started assisting high school students. But with this program, we decided to give the sponsorees a cash allowance. In high school there are often projects and the students have to provide their own materials for these projects. If they don’t submit the projects because they can’t afford the materials, they fail the course and may not go to the next grade level. Also, in high school, the students must wear uniforms. So by giving the students cash, they can use it for whatever they need. The students receive 1,000 pesos ($20) in June when the school year starts and 500 pesos ($10) in September and January. High school was formerly four years. But some years back, the Department of Education added grades seven and eight. So high school is now six years and there is a concentration of vocational courses in grades eleven and twelve.

We have seen an increase of donations in the past couple of years. So starting with the new school year in 2021, we will begin to provide the cash allotment to five students in all six grade levels in 4 more public high schools for a total of 8 schools. We picked high schools in areas of lower economic status. From letters we have received from sponsored students in the past, we know that this assistance has been a great help to the students and also for their parents who struggle so hard to see their children finish high school. The sponsorship has gone very well despite the students studying from home with modules because of the Covid pandemic.  Three of the four new high schools are up in the hills, where most of the parents are farmers or day laborers. When the new school year starts in 2021, we will be sponsoring 240 high school students.