The Click & Care Project

The Click & Care Project

By Raneil Antonio Ibay

The Aeta child beams as she receives a bagful of basic school supplies and a school ID that bears her picture. For most of these kids, this is the first time that they experienced having their photo taken, something that we take for granted. Teacher Loida even asked Lee Viray Cahili of Lenti to explain to the parents what to expect when we take their children’s photos and so first conducted a demonstration.

Last Sunday, June 20, 2010 Framed Shots Camera Club through Dana Krizia Mengote and Lee Viray Cahili of Lenti Camera Club held an outreach project. A project that Lenti started, The Click and Care Project aims to provide basic school supplies like bags, books, pad papers, notebooks, pencils, crayons, slippers and identification cards or IDs to Grade 3 and below Aeta students at the Singles For Christ Gawad Kalinga Village in San Martin, Sto. Niño, Bamban, Tarlac.

Lenti members photographed the kids and made the IDs while Framed Shots members repacked and distributed the bags and IDs. It was both fun and hard work as it was hot inside that small classroom which Teacher Loida allowed us to use as a base of operations.

Donations came from Lenti and Framed Shots Camera Club members, Black Pencil Project, Puso sa Puso, Crystal Clear Water Clark and the Federation of Philippine Photographer’s Foundation (FPPF).

Dinno Sandoval of Pipho provided much needed help, Zab Coloma, Rosy and I hitched a ride with him and Dana. The donated items were also loaded in his SUV. We had some car trouble on the way to Tarlac nut that didn’t keep us from completing the project. Good thing we exited in time at Valenzuela and found a mechanic who fixed the brakes and had us on our way in just a little over an hour.

Fr. Artur Chrzanowski also provided assistance by driving his SUV and hitching Ino Inocencio, Brian Gabarda, Jenni Santos and Arnold Perez. Fr. Art said he didn’t do anything but shoot photos, I said to him that he has good intentions but told me that it was not enough. I told him that sometimes, just being there with the kids, sharing the experience with us is enough.

We had our very late lunch at Nayong Pilipino at Clark Expo courtesy of Lenti and had desert of Razon’s famous Halo-halo at Dau, Pampanga this time courtesy of Dana.

Rain greeted us at the NLEX on the way back to Manila, rain that also started our morning journey to Tarlac and I think it’s just a blessing from above for a job well done.