Doing Small Things with Great Love

One of my favorite quotes come from Mother Teresa of Calcutta…

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When the strongest typhoon to ever hit land came to my home country the Philippines, I was expecting the worse. My fears were realized with the aftermath…

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We were very fortunate to have our families and friends spared from the storms wrath, but we still knew we wanted  & needed to help, not just with the little monetary means we could offer but  with something more.

Living 18,000 miles away,  it wasn't easy to do something more than just send money. Again, the world of blogging and social media came to my aid…

My Chef & Blogger friend, Malou Perez-Nievera from Skip to Malou came up with the idea to use her talent in cooking to raise money for our fellow countrymen affected by the storm. She called this
"One with Tacloban".

Check out her BLOG here

Lucky to call her my friend

Of course, she needed people who were willing to host these fund-raising dinners.
She eventually had 5 total planned, and I along with our other friend , Vivian Deloso, became one of the 5 to host this dinner  at my home!

I was more than willing to share my home because hosting a dinner party was actually something 

we could do, something I could do!

So I sent the invites..

Malou planned our simple sit-down dinner Menu…

And got ready to set up the tables the day after Thanksgiving…

Green table

Red table

Gold table

Since it was the Holiday weekend, a lot of people were not around to join us, so we were only expecting less than 20 people. Despite the small number of attendees, a lot of our friends wanted to help and gave generous donations even if they could not make it.

So last November 30th, we started cooking, with Malou on the helm ….

A true happy cooking chaos in our kitchen!

The three Cooking Claus! 

Aside from the main menu above, my husband steamed a huge Flounder and I made Pumpkin chocolate mousse!

Adobo bites with Mango Slaw for appetizers ready to be served!

Since it was a sit-down dinner, the whole team including my husband and Malou's, were the servers for the entire dinner! 

Service with a smile!

The Gold and the Red table were used by the guests and the Green table became ours, mostly, since we were busy serving food or wine to our guests.

It was fun and a huge success - Food was simply marvelous and the company equally so. Overall, we collected almost $3,000 to send to the victims of the the typhoon!

We decided to give it to a non-profit  called Mu Sigma Phi Foundation, where Dr. Deloso, Vivian's husband was a member of.
That way we know our help can reach the victims DIRECTLY!
It was to be used for a clean water filtration system - something really much needed in the area.

We feel truly blessed that we were able to do this small gesture of support for our countrymen.
Indeed, Mother Teresa summed up what WE all did and came here for that night - doing our small thing with great love.

MABUHAY, God Bless & Have a Wonderful Weekend!

VEL 

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