GUIDED by its principle of ‘people helping people;’ SM Foundation pursues its advocacies in education, health, mall outreach, livelihood and religious ; programs with much vigor and vitality. SM Foundation ; finds various partners and numerous donors to carry out its programs, which are anchored on caring, empowerment, self-enrichment and sustainability fueled by the ultimate goal of serving millions.
‘The year 2010 brought with it a challenge for ;SM Foundation to double its efforts in order to help a greater number of people. The foundation’s efforts mainly concentrated in empowering our marginalized brothers and sisters as we came up with new projects wihile continuing to implement the programs that ‘were done in the past and were deemed effective ‘Debbie Sy, executive director of SM Foundation, said.
SM Foundation’s education advocacy is focused mainly on the college scholarship program and its partnership with the Adopt-A-School Program of the Department of Education. For 2010, SM Foundation has awarded college scholarships to 267 underprivileged yet deserving students who are now enrolled in four- or five-year college courses. It also granted 81 scholarships for technical-vocational courses. As of December 2010, there are 951 SM Foundation scholars enrolled in over 70 universities around the country. In addition, 105 SM Foundation scholars by SM Foundation to 35.
For the foundation’s health advocacy, a total of 76 medical missions were conducted in 2010, serving 72,119 indigent beneficiaries from all over the country. These beneficiaries received not only the proper medical diagnosis and treatment; they were also given free medicines and vitamins, including complete courses of antibiotics.
SM Foundation’s mobile clinics also provided laboratory and examination procedures such as x-ray and urinalysis, among many others. Apart from medical missions, its health advocacy also focused on the Felicidad T. Sy Wellness Centers program, wherein renovations of dilapidated public health centers help to provide a better environment for healing and recuperation. Eight public health centers were successfully repaired and improved last year; thus bringing to 62 the total number of beneficiary centers since the project started.
The foundation’s mall-based outreach program carried on with its four quarterly projects in 2010. Its first-quarter project, Share Your Extras, collected from shoppers in all 40 SM malls donations in kind amounting to approximately P2 million. The donated items were given to 14,484 indigent families or roughly 87,000 individuals.
During the second quarter, Donate-A-Book was able to collect close to 200,000 books, many of which were brand new. A total of 1,375 public medicines, which were used during the foundation’s medical missions. In the last quarter of 2010, the Make A Child Happy/Share A Toy project collected 8,866 toys from mall donors and distributed to underprivileged children during the Make-A-Child-Happy program in various SM malls.
The foundation’s livelihood advocacy, on the other hand, continued its Kabalikat sa Kabuhayan program, which trains beneficiaries in scientific and latest technology farming methods. Last year 1,102 farmer-beneficiaries graduated from the project. To date, more than 3,000 farmers all over the country have undergone training through its efforts. Several selected produce from these farmers are sold at SM retail outlets.
With SM’s continued growth and expansion over the last decade, the company’s socio-civic arm SM Foundation likewise heightened its advocacies to expand its reach.
‘With these growing and expanding CSR initiatives, SM Foundation has remained focused, committed and dedicated to our vision of empowering our people; SM chairman and founder Henry Sy Sr. explains.
Armed and inspired by SM’s heart to serve, SM Foundation is, indeed, prepared to seize greater opportunities to share its brand of service to millions more.