SNAP-Magat partners make life sweeter for residents of Tupaya.

SN Aboitiz Power-Magat’s (SNAP-Magat) corporate social responsibility (CSR) Team and officials of Barangay Tupaya led the inauguration of a Muscovado Processing Building for the barangay recently.

Funded through the CSR allocation of Tupaya in the municipality of Lagawe, other partners for the project include DoLE who also donated funding for the purchase of muscovado processing equipment, and the municipal government for providing sugarcane seedlings for the sugarcane plantation. The provincial government of Ifugao is also a strong supporter of this livelihood project.

Meanwhile, SNAP-Magat also donated a multicab to the barangay for use during emergencies. According to Barangay Chairman Joey Anghad, the multicab has been helpful not only to Tupaya, but also to the neighboring barangays of Buyabuyan and Ponghal where it was used to help rush pregnant mothers to the hospital.

Smart employees planting at the mangrove site. Mangrove-planting activity

Employee-volunteers from Smart Communications recently joined Ericsson for a mangrove planting activity at the Sasmuan Bangkung Mapalad Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (SBMCHEA) in Pampanga.

The SBMCHEA is a beneficiary of the Connected Mangroves project, a joint initiative by Ericsson and Smart. The Connected Mangroves project aims to help in environmental conservation by using IoT (internet of things) solutions.

These solutions include attaching onto mangroves electronic sensors, which can detect and record information vital to the tree formation, such as temperature, water salinity and other factors that may be hazardous to its condition. The information is then uploaded to an online dashboard, which may be accessed by authorities and stakeholders.

The activity is part of Smart’s programs toward environmental protection and employee engagement. Pictures show Smart employees planting and posing for a group photo at the mangrove site.

Starbucks and PFBF successfully delivered a total of 1,600 pastries to orphanages, school and underserved communities near the six stores as part of a food sharing initiative. Uplifting communities through food sharing

Since it first opened in the Philippines in 1997, Starbucks has donated unsold yet still fully edible pastries to non-government organizations (NGO). This year, Starbucks aims to serve more communities with the help of the Philippine Food Bank Foundation (PFBF).

Just recently, Starbucks partnered with the PFBF to help a few Starbucks branches find partner NGOs and implement this FoodShare initiative. For their pilot run which lasted for one week, Starbucks and PFBF successfully delivered a total of 1,600 pastries to orphanages, school and underserved communities near the six stores.

“We decided to approach socially responsible food companies in the Philippines to allow us to distribute their soon-to-expire but still very edible products to the malnourished and undernourished Filipinos belonging to the 21 percent of Filipino families who fall below the poverty line. We found them among squatter areas in urban districts, poor households in the rural areas, orphanages, children in public schools and feeding clinics run by both public and private agencies. Since we started distributing these food items two years ago, we have reached around 20,000 beneficiaries, equal to the number of pieces donated by Starbucks so far from November 2019 onwards,” said Dr. Bernardo Villegas, head of PFBF.

With the success of their pilot run, Starbucks continues the partnership with the PFBF and has recently rolled out the initiative to 13 more stores in Southern Metro Manila including Las Piñas City, Muntinlupa City and Parañaque City.

The FoodShare program is one of the many steps Starbucks is taking to fulfill its mission of inspiring and nurturing the human spirit — one person, one cup and one community at a time.