Filipinos see education as their way to escape the pit of poverty and with good cause. A good educational background can help individuals find stable and fulfilling jobs which lead to a better future. Unfortunately, not everyone has the financial capability to send their children to a good university to pursue a college degree.

SM Foundation Inc.(SMFI) was established in 1993 to help deserving students reach their goal of receiving quality education and it still does so until today. A dinner was held at the SMX Convention Center to honor the recent batch of graduates which totals 225 students from different schools and universities from all around the country.

It was a tearful event for both parents and students as they expressed their gratitude to SMFI for giving their families a chance to find a better future. Though coming from different families from different areas in the Philippines, a story of financial difficulty was constant but with the help of SMFI’s scholarship program, they were able to send their offspring to a good school and get a degree.

Giovani Tabale graduated from Ateneo De Davao University with a degree in Accountancy and he explained that without the SM Scholarship Program, he wouldn’t have been able to study in a prestigious university such as the Ateneo. “We are 3 siblings living with my widowed mother. My father passed away when I was in 2nd year high school,” he explained.  

Tabale saw his acceptance to be a part of the SM scholars as an opportunity and a challenge. “We had to maintain a good set of grades, none lower than 85. But they do give chances if you fail to meet the academic requirement. Aside from the scholarship, we were also given a monthly allowance that helped in our daily student life, especially when we needed money for projects and other school requirements.”

April Accorda heard about the SMFI scholarship program through her high school classmates, applying at the customer service center in SM North EDSA. It was on her birthday that she received a call from SMFI telling her that she had been accepted as one of the SMFI scholars. She was given the chance to pick a school of her choosing and she chose to study in the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus taking up a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education majoring in English, graduating cum laude.

“I’m now hired as an elementary teacher in Malabon. I’m teaching in St. Therese of the Child Jesus Academy. And at the same time, I’m planning to take the board exam this September,” she said.

She explained that she wanted to study and graduate for the sake of her family and help alleviate their tight fiscal condition. “My father is a pedicab driver while my mother is a housewife but she helps raise money by doing laundry and other chores. I really pursued my studies because I wanted to get out of poverty,” she said.

Mary Justine Torres thought that she would never be able to get into college due to her family’s lack of money. “It was my aunt who pushed me to apply for the SM Scholarship Program. My dad is a tricycle driver and my mom is a housewife. I was always on the lookout for scholarship programs because I feared that I wouldn’t be able to get into college without one,” she explained.

“I was proud that I was accepted to be part of the SM  scholarship program. It is a big responsibility because they trusted in me and my capability to excel in my academics. I graduated with a degree in Commerce majoring in Banking and Finance,” she added.

Now, she plans to work in an SM-owned company as a way of giving back to the people who gave her a chance for a better life ahead. “I want to work in SM as a way of saying thank you for giving me the chance to pursue my dream. They paid for my tuition, they gave me a monthly stipend. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she said.

Their stories are just a few of many whose lives were changed for the better due to SMFI’s advocacy of giving deserving students the help they needed to shape a better future for them and their families.