“Each of our social development initiatives articulates our legacy of helping people help themselves,” said Aboitiz Foundation President Jon Ramon Aboitiz. He noted that education remains its biggest thrust among its focus areas.

“We believe education should be a great leveler of society and that all our students should be given the chance to succeed in school. In essence, we as adults are called to be positive influences on the lives of our children and the Aboitiz Foundation takes ownership of this duty,” he added.

For 25 years, the foundation has provided hundreds of library kits and classrooms, training centers, computer laboratories, corporate donations, more than 20,000 scholarships, and over P100 million in microfinance loans to thousands of beneficiaries nationwide.

As part of its initiatives geared towards uplifting the education system in the country, the Aboitiz Foundation turned over 40 new classrooms to the AGAPP Foundation, a non-profit organization engaged in the pre-school construction in depressed and disadvantaged areas designated by the Department of Education (DepEd).

The turnover fulfills its goal of providing 134 classrooms to AGAPP by 2013, demonstrating how education is an integral component of the Aboitiz Group’s corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Aboitiz expressed gratitude to the AGAPP Foundation for the privilege of being part of developing child- and school-focused projects that benefit underprivileged children.

The Aboitiz Foundation came on board for the AGAPP Foundation’s “SilidPangarap” project in 2011.

The Aboitiz Group set out to build special classrooms for young children entering school for the first time and pledged to deliver 134 classrooms nationwide. The Aboitiz Foundation turned over 52 classrooms in 2011 and followed up with a donation of 42 more in 2012.

Corporate social responsibility in the Aboitiz Group can be traced back to the company’s modest beginnings in the hemp trade in the late 1800s. Today, the Aboitiz Group utilizes its resources to implement projects that uplift the lives of communities it serves.

In education alone, the Aboitiz Foundation builds school buildings, rewires classrooms, refurbishes science and computer laboratories, provides scholarships and financial assistance, donates computers and library kits, among others.

The Aboitiz Foundation committed to the group’s five sustainability pillars, which are: Rejuvenate Nature, Re-use and Recycle, Reduce, Renewable Energy, and Recharge Communities in response to the adverse effects of climate change. It actively supports the Aboitiz Passion for Reforest and Agroforest to Keep (APARK) – a biodiversity program that aims to plant three million trees by 2015.

The Aboitiz Group will likely reach its target ahead of 2015 as it expects to cross the three million mark by the end of the year.

Last year, Aboitiz Foundation also launched yet another milestone as it made its biggest donation yet at Php124.7 million to WeatherPhilippines Foundation, a partnership with Union Bank of the Philippines and Meteomedia, a Swiss based innovation leader in weather information and content services.

WeatherPhilippines works in close coordination with local governments to complete the installation of 1,000 automated weather instruments nationwide by the end of the year to give timely, accurate, localized weather forecasts that greatly improve the LGUs disaster preparedness.

During the 25th year celebration, Aboitiz also expressed his thanks to the support given by AGAPP Foundation led by Pinky Aquino-Abellada and Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro as well as the 30,000 Aboitiz group members who gave their time, energy, hearts and minds to support the worthy causes of the Aboitiz Foundation.