Ramon Dacawi
BAGUIO CITY -- One is never too young to be a Samaritan.
Pre-schoolers of Westmont School Montessori at Camp 7 here proved this last week-end when they and their parents contributed bulk of a P13,000 fund the school raised so an ailing 14-year old girl can have a new lease on life.
To mark United Nations month, the kids up to high school had an open house and food sale. Unlike in previous efforts, school president Margarita Martires-Lijauco and principal Carina Bugasto-Navarro decided to include those in pre-school or from the “casa dei bambini”, the children’s house.
“They (pre-schoolers) contributed the most,” Lijauco told patient Ashley Sabling and her mother, Judilyn last Wednesday. Ashley, who’s on regular twice-a-week hemodialysis since last March, when she was diagnosed for kidney failure, wanted to visit the school for the second time. She had hoped to see again her young benefactors who, some two months back, handed her P8,000 they raised from their :Linggo ng Wika” program.
“The kids are still out until the eighth but they know that Ashley needs support as soon as possible,” Navarro told the visitors. The latest humanitarian effort was spearheaded by high school student leaders Roberto Bembo, Brin Lee, Red Navarro and Sam Lijauco.
Two years back, the kids learned to process kimchi from their Korean schoolmates and parents. From the sales, they netted P10,000 which they turned over to a messenger who used the same for the treatment and medication and indigent patients.
“In this United Nations booth sales, we are deeply indebted to Aida Koshbooie, the owner of Ziba’s Kitchen,” Navarro acknowledged. “She gave all the sales from her booth.”
Judilyn, a 51-year old housewife from Tadian, said pupils in her town had taken the cue from the practice of Westmont kids marking events with a humanitarian dimension.
“They, too, are into selling items so they can help people in need since they learned how your kids here in Westmont helped Ashley,” Mrs. Sabling said.
Ashley, her mother said, keeps a clipping of her photo with the Westmont kids published after her first visit to the school last September.
From Westmont, newsman Paul Rillorta drove the mother and child back to the city. Judilyn dropped by the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, to deposit the Westmont kids donation to the dialysis center. “This saves us the cost of five dialysis sessions,” she said of the kids’ contribution placed inside a pink capsule.
Ashley alighted in front of the Baguio City National High School where she is in the second year class, under a special arrangement due to her need to be at the dialysis room for four hours every Monday and Thursday.
The Westmont kids showed no one is too young to be of help. In the same token, one can never be too young to be a patient, as Ashley’s case shows. .
As this was being written last Thursday, a 44-year old farmer from Lagangilang, Abra, reappeared, asking if anybody had responded to his appeal for type O blood donation. Dennis Burgonio said Faith, his seven-year old daughter, is fighting leukemia and needed blood platelet transfusion as soon as possible.
This prompted journalist Aileen Refuerzo to air public service item on the urgent need People who read it uploaded the plea on Facebook for a wider reach.
Likewise, Bombo Radyo DZWX station manager Edong Carta called the Baguio Red Cross, but was told it had run out of stock, but was ready to process blood unit donations for the needed platelet.
People who can draw blood for the kid, the fifth of sixth children, can proceed to the Red Cross office along Harrison Rd. Others who can support the cost of treatment may visit Faith at the pedia ward, second floor of the new building of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center that Baguio boy, Dr. Juan Flavier, built.(e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments). .
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