Centre for Cebu kids needs cash: Smokey Mountain is calling again

Sydney
1 June 2003

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Centre for Cebu kids needs cash: Smokey Mountain is calling again.

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Centre for Cebu kids needs cash: Smokey Mountain is calling again

Fr John Iacono (left) with Fr Heinz Kuluke SVD and Helen de Guzman

Fr John Iacono, formerly of Enmore-Tempe parish, is appealing for continued support for the Bethlehem Day Care Centre in Cebu, in the Philippines.

The centre serves the families who live on Smokey Mountain, Cebu city’s dumpsite.

Fr John says the amount raised in Australia to build a permanent day care centre, through fundraising and appeals in The Catholic Weekly, has been around $150,000.

The local government has promised $70,000 and local benefactors and donors have given $30,000.

“We need another $50,000 to be able to fulfil our dream to have our own permanent day care centre operating full time,” Fr John writes from Cebu.

Construction on the centre began in March. The completion target date is December and a blessing and opening ceremony has been scheduled for January.

Helen de Guzman, the co-ordinator of the day care centre, has been Sydney visiting friends who have helped Fr John with fundraising over the past few years.

“The main purpose of my visit is to thank everyone who contributed small or big from the bottom of our hearts,” she says.

“Our friends here have attracted so many supporters, if not for them the centre would never have got started.”

Helen has been involved with the day care centre at Smokey Mountain since the Archdiocese of Cebu began its apostolic outreach there in 1993.

“I feel fulfilled when I’m working in the service of the Lord’s people, especially his children,” she says.