Maxine Esteban of Ateneo added her entire 2019 salary from the Philippine Sports Commission to close out her “A Small Thing Goes A Long Way” fundraising drive for medical frontliners and vulnerable communities last Sunday.
Wanting to reach exactly P500,000, the 19-year-old national team fencer decided to add her allowance and, as well as, her incentive for winning bronze in the Team Foil event during the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.
“First off, I want to thank all our donors, without whom this project would not have been possible,” expressed Esteban.
“We were able to raise around 360,000 pesos from our donors but my sisters and I wanted to reach 500,000 so I decided to share my blessings as well.”
The money raised went to purchasing packs of rice and personal protective equipment.
The Esteban sisters distributed 150 packs of five-kilogram rice for UERM, 400 packs of five-kilogram rice for UST Hospital, 150 packs to National Children’s Hospital, 2,400 packs of two-kilogram rice and 150 packs of 25-kilogram rice to the San Juan City Hall, and 1,000 pieces of face shields to Cardinal Santos, UERM, MMC, and NCH.
Besides this, they also sent out 92 bottles of alcohol and 50 Uratex COVID-19 pillows to numerous hospitals as well.
But it does not stop there for Esteban and her sisters.
Currently, they are working on 10 paintings that they will sell or auction off to raise more funds for the frontliners.
“Because we heard that there are many of our brothers and sisters that are still in need. We wanted to think of more ways to help them, that is why me and my sisters have another project on-going which is to sell our paintings,” shared the UAAP Season 81 Women’s Fencing Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player.
“We plan to put up 10 of our paintings. Me and my sister have been painting a lot during the quarantine period. We have been watching the tutorials of Jay Lee, an artist who uses aluminum foil and cotton buds for his work.”
Esteban, a sophomore taking up Management Engineering, also made the most of her time during the on-going enhanced community quarantine.
Instead of being idle, Esteban enrolled in multiple online classes by Wharton and Yale University, finishing short courses in Entrepreneurship, Viral Marketing, Introduction to Marketing, Customer Analytics, Introduction to Marketing, Financial Markets, and Introduction to Negotiation.
