Journal Entry # 10

THE JOURNEY HOME JOURNAL

by: Bobby Manzano, President & Executive Director, OSP 

The Journey Home generated a lot of good press for us and the excitement it created seems to be yielding the effect we had intended from the start. This morning, I got two calls, one from the incoming president of a Rotary Club in Makati and another from a local government official in Eastern Samar, a province which lies many miles south of Manila. Both expressed keen interest in hosting an Operation Smile medical mission in their respective locality. If this continues, we’re going to have another busy year in 2013.

As I’ve mentioned in my post mission report, we are going to leverage the hype and emotion we built during The Journey Home to attract more adherents to our cause. Two of our staunch supporters are going to help us here.  Smart Communications is running a multi-media campaign to drive donations via text messaging during the Christmas season. I’ve also talked with people from McCann Worldwide about doing a post-mission print ad for us after the New Year.

McCann Worldwide and Smart Communications have been outstanding in their support for us throughout The Journey Home.  I couldn’t thank them enough; they played a big role in the mission’s success.

In between my meetings today, I had some time to look at the photographs taken during The Journey Home and one particular shot, shown above, caught my attention.  That boy will wake up to a new life.  The memory of the nightmarish existence he had before his surgery will fade like a bad dream in time, and he can move on and have a future.   I’ve seen this tableau hundreds of times before yet it still stirs me.   It’s truly magical how we can transform a life in a matter of just a few minutes.

There are numerous moments like this that you’ve captured with your cameras, and we would greatly appreciate it if you can share these with us.  We are currently preparing a post-mission report that we’ll submit to our donors and partners and your photographs will allow us to tell the story of The Journey Home better than any written words can. 

  

Please send the images via email to albert.santos@operationsmile.org.ph or burn them on a disc and send to Operation Smile Philippines, 19/F, UCPB Building, 7907 Makati Avenue, Makati, Philippines 1225.