Project Tulong was formed as a way for Kristine and I to make a concerted effort to offer aid and support to people in need in Southern Mindanao, which is where Kristine was born. Tulong, the Tagalog word meaning help, is at the foundation of our mission. Our vision was initially formed during the catastrophic typhoons that hit the island of Luzon in 2020. Many of the outlying villages were devastated, leaving people without shelter, food, or unable to escape the flooding. Kristine and I decided that for our wedding in 2021, we would take donations for relief support for the remote villages East of Manila. Then we would spend our honeymoon delivering aid and resources to those villages.
We were overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity in helping us reach not only reach our initial goal of raising $3,000, but actually surpassing that by bringing the total donations for relief to $3,355! Everyone pulled together in a time that was truly one of the toughest times globally to help others and it really meant the world to us.
Unfortunately, COVID made our endeavor virtually impossible, as the border closures prevented us from even getting into the Philippines throughout 2021. Later in 2021 our first son was born, which further delayed our plans for doing distribution. However, through an immense amount of planning and local organization, immediately after our son’s 1st birthday, we all departed for the Philippines to fulfill our mission.
