Written by: Ate Charmain Tan, External Vice President
It was a busy day for U! Happy Events last saturday. Aside form having 3 events we also had our U! Happy Events Core Bonding session at Buendia Food by the Court. Located beside a basketball court, it is one of the newest food places to check out in Makati opening early this year. There are several food stalls with different cuisine to choose from. Open air seating area is located in the ground floor and a roof deck upstairs where friends can enjoy the city view. The event was headed by our founder Harvard Uy De Baron, also the man behind one of the top food blogging sites Always Hungry PH. U! Happy Events core team and photographers participated in the event. As a food blogger, our founder sampled a wide range of dishes form the different food stalls. There was a huge variety of choices laid out on a couple of long table. Our photographers didn’t waste the opportunity to take great photos of the wonderful food options.
For our activity, we were divided into groups and each group was headed by a photographer. They gave us tips on how to take great food photos. Each team had to post a photo on their Instagram and Harvard would pick the winner. Each team was creative in trying to come up with interesting photos. After the activity we all got to enjoy the different dishes. There were Takoyaki from Little Kodo, Ground Beef Quesadilla and Cheesy Nacos from Laxema , the Green Burger made from pandan and malunggay by Burgers Meet Wings, a Filipino favorite Tapsilog by TAPAddiction, and many others.
We also did a food trivia quiz night where teams competed for 3 rounds of easy, moderate, and hard questions related to food. We also gave away some raffle items, including a black and white photograph of the children from one of our long time beneficiaries Project Pearls, won by our photographer Chris.
It was an evening of celebration as we remembered our 10th year anniversary and also congratulated our founder Harvard Uy De Baron being the Grand National Awardee of the the CSR Youth Awards this year awarded by Benita & Catalino Yap Foundation (BCYF) in partnership with Deloitte. For the last three years the foundation recognizes outstanding youth leaders for CSR 3.0 – Citizenship, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility. Held in Club Filipino last August 25 it was the final night of a week long event on CSR Youth Leaders’ Congress.
Over the last decade the family of U! Happy Events has grown to include more than 50 core team members who dedicate their time to volunteer for a great cause. That evening we officially inducted some core interns to be a part of our team. As everyone is busy with their full time work we only get to see one another during the events on the weekends. There are usually several events happening simultaneously and core members are split up into the different events. It was a great night indeed to gather everyone and get to know one another better. We share a common passion as we all work towards our goal in reaching out to the marginalized children in our communities.
