SM FOUNDATION SCHOLARS RAISE FUND FOR SCHOLARS

Over a thousand alumni of the SM Foundation scholarship program who flocked to the SMX Convention Center on January 6 to reunite with SM patriarch Henry Sy Sr., matriarch Felicidad T. Sy, eldest daughter Tessie Sy-Coson and youngest son Harley committed to raise funds to increase more scholars to the program that the Foundation espouses.

After presenting “Tatang” and “Nanang” with a simple gift of gratitude, the five founders of the “Scholars for Scholars” movement headed by Loida Ongteco-de Vera, now Operations Manager of SM Hypermarket; Ellyson Bala, SAVP, IT Department, SM Prime Holdings; Novelyn Beboso-Denoso, Finance Analyst, San Miguel Foods, Inc.; Emylor Manit-Cadalzo, RS Department Manager, NKC Manufacturing Phils. Corp. & Junnair B. Manla, Network Engineer, NTT Singapore Pte. Ltd. presented Debbie P. Sy, Executive Director of SM Foundation with a seed money of 1100,000 that they raised amongst themselves vowing to increase it in time for enrollment in July. The five founders of the “Scholars for Scholars” movement of the more stable alumni of SM Foundation also distributed voluntary pledge forms during the program

Also present at the gathering were Mr. Jose Sio, President of SM Foundation, Linda Atayde, Executive Director for Education and Trustees of the Board, Dr. Lydia Echauz and Chito Macapagal. SM Executives led by SMIC’s Paul Arcenas and Ronald Tumao also came to lend support to the activity.

They came from all over the Philippines with many of them working in countries like the United States, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Singapore, and the Middle East to pay tribute to the founder of SM Foundation and to pledge to “pay forward” the generosity of the Sys to other less-fortunate but bright students.

At present, SM Foundation maintains over a thousand scholars a year with 2,000 more taking tech-voc courses. So far, 4,000 scholars have graduated from the SM Foundation college education program from partner schools which started in 2002.