SM Foundation to present scholar-graduates to Sy family

To honor SM Foundation scholar-graduates for schoolyear 2017-2018, the SY family will tender a testimonial dinner at the SMX on June 27.

The 330 graduates nationwide (149 from the NCR, 115 from Luzon, 12 from Mindanao and 57 from the Visayas region) from 105 partner universities and colleges throughout the country together with their parents or guardians will gather to meet their benefactor, Henry Sy Sr. and his family.

Earlier in the day, the graduates, many of whom are flown in from the provinces will be offered jobs in the various SM offices in Manila and the provinces. Job offer desks manned by human resource executives of these SM offices are laid out at the entrance of the SMX function room for job interviews and subsequent offers. In the past, many of the graduates accepted the offers although some opt to join other companies or hold these offers in abeyance until after they have hurdled the professional board examinations.

This year’s batch is led by two summa cum laude graduates: Jedda Pascual, a graduate of the Ateneo de Davao, College of Accountancy and Danielle Francis Olsen, BS Accountancy from the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos. Eighty-seven out of the 330 scholars are graduating with Latin honors. This year’s batch will also be a memorable event for scholars from Samar, Leyte and other provinces affected by killer typhoon Yolanda. Many of these Yolanda scholars are graduating with honors.

The scholars will hear from guest speaker Loida Ongteco de Vera, former SM scholar, her memorable and inspirational journey as a scholar to what she is now, the operations manager of SM Hypermarket. De Vera graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from the Philippine Normal University in 2000.

This is the 22nd year of the presentation of scholars to their benefactors.

SM Foundation maintains 2,000 college scholars yearly and another 2,000 tech-voc scholars.