The USC Community Extension Services (CES), in partnership with the Department of Accountancy, Department of Business Administration, and Carolinians’ Ongoing Journey with Post-Emergency Survivors (COPES) Program, turned over mobile stores to selected women beneficiaries in Sitio Toril, Canjulao, Lapu-Lapu City, on April 2, 2023. 

Aside from the stores, the students of the School of Business and Economics (SBE) also provided kits to help the beneficiaries kick start their business operations which include selling vegetables, rice, snacks, beauty products, mobile load, firewood, dried fish, among others. 

To help the beneficiaries market their products online, the student volunteers also taught them how to create Facebook pages. 

The activity is part of the student-initiated Pagsalom Project which started as a webinar that taught women, particularly mothers, how to start a business. After that, they focused on teaching the beneficiaries how to sustain and grow their businesses. 

Once the beneficiaries were equipped with the basic knowledge on how to manage a business, the students started fundraising. The proceeds went to the purchase of business kits as well as products and materials that were given to the beneficiaries to help them start their small businesses. 

USC CES, headed by its Director Fr. Franlou Bardon, SVD, also contributed by tapping external lay mission partners and providing additional funds for the construction of the mobile stores. 

In his message, University President Fr. Narciso A. Cellan Jr., SVD, D.Comm., emphasized the importance of formation programs as part of USC’s curriculum to broaden students’ knowledge and appreciation of lessons that cannot be learned inside the classroom. 

Fr. Cellan also reminded the students about the importance of Learning through Service which is in line with the University’s goal of providing an Education with a Mission. 

This initiative is part of USC’s goal of strengthening multidisciplinary volunteer programs. Aside from SBE, student volunteers from the School of Engineering, School of Health Care Professions, and School of Arts and Sciences also visited the community to provide solar lighting, building construction, herbal planting and urban gardening, and a community library.