We passed by the children, in their white and blue checkered uniforms, on our way to the gymnasium of Barangay Taptap for “Food+Stories+Books,” a three-in-one event which marks the second initiative of Cebu Nanays for Nanays since its inception just last May 2018.
Inside the Golden Prince Hotel van was Mrs. Louella “Tita Loy” Alix; Basadours Doreen Sy Maloloy-on, John Espinoza, Jennie Elloran and Jo Belle Marabiles; my daughter Antoinette and myself.
At the back of the van, driven by our trusted chauffeur named Vincent, were boxes of Jollibee lunch packs containing chickenjoy and rice, book, toys and art materials.
The idea of “Food+Stories+Books” dawned on me when I visited Tita Loy in her house on Gorordo Avenue in Cebu City. The super plan was to get Tita Loy to talk to mothers, while I have a storytelling session with the children. It took a couple of months before I finally wrap my head around the details of the event. I decided to put it together in July because of two celebrations: (1) the National Children’s Book Day in the Philippines, which falls on the third Tuesday of July to commemorate the anniversary of the publication of Jose Rizal’s “The Monkey and the Turtle” in Trubner’s Oriental Record in London; and (2) July is National Nutrition Month, a perfect time to teach mothers how to cook healthy and delicious dishes.
I am chronicling this here because Cebu Nanays for Nanays was born out of Toddler Storytime, an initiative that was also inspired by this blog.
In organizing Food+Stories+Books, I decided to bring together three of the things that I love the most in this life. Allow me to document the details on how I put this initiative together.
The theme
The idea of Cebu Nanays for Nanays is to visit different barangays every month and carry out talks/sharings/workshops on a particular topic that will inform, inspire and involve the mothers in the community.
For June 2018, we talked about “First Aid and CPR” with parents from Barangay Capitol Site. This month, I looked at nutrition and health as the theme and then moved forward from there. As a member of the non-government organization, Basadours Inc., that advocate love of reading through storytelling, I requested the help of my fellow Basadours to handle the storytelling session part of the event. The Cebu City Public Library, under the leadership of Chief Librarian Rosario “Ruth” Chua, also agreed to join in the fun as they will turnover books to the barangay’s reading center.
The next step was to design the poster. Recently, I am obsessed about making and designing posters. Working on this event poster was one of my stress relievers. I can do this the entire day because thinking of ways on how to put together all the elements in one canvas is a challenging task. It rewards you later when you see the poster being shared or, in this case, when it was printed and I saw displayed in the gym of Barangay Taptap. Thank you Griffins for reminding me to have this printed.
The village
I picked Barangay Taptap because I know Councilor Griffins Malazarte since he was 12 years old.
We met in a workshop/conference that aimed to develop Cebu City’s Local Youth Development Plan. He was a member of community-based youth organization while I represented my school organization from the University of the Philippines Cebu College. Fast forward to 2018, Griffins is now a 26-year-old fashion designer and a successful entrepreneur who started “GMO Collections” from scratch and made it into a brand of quality and affordable custom-made and rental gowns/outfits.
I have always remembered Griffins as a person with the heart for community service; that is why on the night that I had a clear vision of what I want to happen for the event, I asked him if he would be willing to have it in his barangay.
The reply?
“Sure.”
The elements
I wanted to bring together food, stories and books under one event. Hence, “Food+Stories+Events” with each component catering to the mothers/parents, children and the barangay/community.
For the mothers
Before asking Griffins if he would be willing to host the event in his hometown, I asked Tita Loy beforehand about her availability.
Tita Loy is a busy woman being the heritage consultant of Golden Prince Hotel and Suites and a staunch supporter of advocacies in heritage and cultural preservation, environment and literature. She also writes a column in Cebu Daily News.
Tita Loy is the celebrated author of “Hikay: The Culinary Heritage of Cebu.” She is a home cook, who loves to feed her immediate family, extended family, visitors and girls like me looking for apple pie and/or callos. Because SHE CAN COOK, I requested Tita Loy to be in the “food” element of the event. She came up with two recipes namely banana blossom burger and humbang nangka. (Watch out for the recipes in this blog.)
The recipes did not call for any meat product. Instead, the mothers were taught how to use indigenous ingredients in making delicious and healthy dishes for their families. There was no shortage of banters, laughs and teamwork that day.
The mothers had a great time learning these two recipes. They chopped, mixed, fried. Even my daughter Antoinette was happy to be the apprentice of her “Lola Loy”.
Lunch included Jollibee chickenjoy and rice (thank you Sir Nelson and Leah!) and tinolang manok bisaya. Griffins made sure that we had the chicken soup for lunch.
Griffins’ family also served us with sweet corn which were harvested from their farm. While we were eating lunch, the team from Avon started setting up their booth and registration tables. Avon is another partner that reached out to me after a status I posted about needing volunteer make-up artists for another event.
Although they were a last-minute addition to the event, the Avon team never gave me any headache in the set up. Everyone was wonderful on that day.
For the children
My fellow Basadours handled the storytelling session which had 40 children from the Day Care Center.
Jo Belle, Doreen, Jennie and John were balls of energy and enthusiasm that morning as they performed games and energizers and read two books: The first story was “Si Pagong at si Matsing” written by Jose Rizal, retold by Virgilio Almario and illustrated by Robert Fucio. Jo Belle then read”Just Add Dirt,” a story about how different kinds of vegetables grew in different parts of his body because he refused to take a bath. The two-hour session was wrapped up by a group coloring activity with illustrations drawn on sheets of Manila paper.
For the community
The Cebu City Public Library donated books to the reading center of the barangay. Tita Loy also brought along books, toys and art materials, which were sent over from the US by her sister-in-law, Lisa — and these were donated to the Day Care center.
The partners
Food+Stories+Books would never be possible without the support of Basadours Inc., Avon, Cebu City Public Library and Councilor Griffins Malazarte.
Our gratitude to our sponsors namely Jollibee and Golden Prince Hotel and Suites. One of the reasons why I truly love Cebu is the presence of partners and like-hearted/like-minded individuals, who will gladly support endeavors for a good cause. Thank you very much for the trust!
Next stop for Cebu Nanays for Nanays: Barangay Calawisan in Lapu-Lapu City!
Where should we head next?
