By Bobby & Nina Tamayo

It has been a year since we launched Feed the Hungry’s “The Biik Plan.” For those who do not know, the word biik in Pilipino means “baby pig” or piglet. Over time, as you all know, the biik has also come to symbolize savings in money, witness the invention of the piggy bank. This piggy bank, or piglet, can hold little quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. You know what? The loose change that we take for granted here, when added together, could amount to something that could make a difference in someone’s life over there. By there we mean our home country, the Philippines.

When you think about it, big changes can come from little things. And so, it is that we in Feed the Hungry, Inc. have decided that the piggy bank concept will be a worthwhile endeavor to pursue — collect the coins that we put away anyway, and then donate these monies to feed the malnourished Filipino children.

Your tax-deductible donation to Feed the Hungry will go a long way to keeping our country’s impoverished children out of the streets and into the classrooms. For every piglet containing $50 in loose change, a child can be fed for six months. We need 1,200 piglets to sustain one feeding program for 40 kids for 6 months. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, when the little efforts of each one of us are added together, the results can be big. We also thought it would be fun
to teach our young children in this country to save their loose change. To this effect, we asked Paaralang Pinoy, a Philippine language and culture enrichment program based in Springfield, Virginia, to help us in this undertaking. On their graduation day, they presented to us their savings and their willingness to continue helping to feed malnourished children, of their age, in Manila.

We would like thank all of our wonderful donors and we are asking all of you again to please continue to request from your friends and families, and your neighbors and your neighbors’ friends and families, to please become part of our effort to make a difference with these little biiks. So, every time you see a coin on the street, please pick it up. Please remember that for every penny you donate, there is a hungry mouth you feed. Together, we can do big things!