Service, declared Vic de Leon, is an end in itself. “Doing service is gratification enough,” he said.
De Leon is president of the Alpha Phi Omega alumni association in Metro DC (APODCAA) and on this weekend, dozens of members and their friends fanned out across the capital to help re-paint and beautify schools as part of DC’s Hands-on Community Service program.
They’ve been doing this for the past 10 years. “It was among the first projects that we adopted,” he explained.
The APODCAA is one of the most active Fil-Am organizations in the region. They have about 60 active members in the Metro DC region although De Leon believes they have many more “brods” and “sis” living in the area who still have to make their presence felt.
On April 30, about a dozen APO men and women helped paint the Peabody Elementary School on C Street NE. Some 147 students go there and they include a few Asian-Americans; over 40 percent of students belong to low-income families.
The group was composed of De Leon, Di Aquino, Soan Velasquez, Sherwin Landicho, Nenette Malapitan, Jesse Dayrit, Bodgie Oasan, Dennis Gawat, Santi and Lulu Sipino, and Axi and Pol Alvarez, and their children.
Pauline Sipin, the youngest daughter of one APO officer, saw there were enough “warm bodies” at Peabody so she organized friends and classmates to complete a mural for the C.W. Harris Elementary School.
She led an online sign-up of the Student Architect Club of Montgomery College in Rockville, MD and even managed to get the school to provide them with T-shirts and materials for the mural.
Her group was composed of Pauline, Julie Latos, Sonia Carbajal, Alireza Pirjahanideh, Ashley Beeks, Brian Alfaro, Damian Seals, Daniel Salgado, Diana Lopez, Ismael Barry, Johany Botero, Markus Hongmanivanh, Medard Masangu, Mojgan Estiyagh, professor Randy Steiner, Riham Osman and Zahra Naserdehghan
De Leon has posited that public service is contagious, noting that their activities have often become family affairs involving even their young children. “I think they’ve grown to enjoying seeing their parents giving back to the community,” he explained.
The APO actually grew out of the United States. Its first overseas chapter was established at the Far Eastern University in Manila in 1950. Within three years, the Manila chapter had expanded to most of the metropolis and in the Visayas and was registered with the Securities & Exchange Commission as a non-profit, non-stock organization.
The APODCAA was formed in 2001 in Rockville, MD as a family support and community service alumni organization, committed to “doing a good turn daily.” While they’re also geared towards helping the Philippines, recently shipping scores of dialysis machines to Bicol and Mindanao, the group is immersed in the communities of their adopted home.
They participate in feeding activities for homeless Washingtonians, joined Habitat for Humanity projects and even help out the yearly Marine Corps Marathon.
De Leon said they only give what they have: their time, energy and friendship. “We don’t have money but that doesn’t stop us,” he declared, “we don’t choose who we help, for as long as we can help, we will do it because service is our core value.”
At the end of their work at Peabody Elementary School, they spread out their “baon” for an impromptu family picnic. They invited the school’s principal and maintenance people to a Filipino feast. “They were so happy to taste our puto and pancit,” De Leon mused, “watching them enjoying gave us a really warm feeling.”
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