On this bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, a thousand kids, clad in house clothes and wearing worn-out slippers, trooped to the ING Village in Calauan, Laguna where some 160 tables and 1,000 chairs had been set up under tents, waiting for their arrival.

With their mothers dutifully holding umbrellas over their heads, the kids rushed to seize the chance to eat a nice, healthy lunch. For their parents, it’s one less meal to worry about for the day.

The houses on this side of the Bayanijuan project, already in its second phase, boast of a 27-square meter floor space each, bigger than some studio-type condo units in Makati. The concrete houses are almost finished. The men are putting in the final touches, like smoothing out the exterior and fixing the windows. The verdant Mt. Makiling looms large in the background, while banana and palm trees sway amidst the cloudless sky.

For 16-year-old Jecell Umacam, the feeding program is a family affair. With Jecell, a high school senior at the nearby Dayap National High School, were her three younger siblings: Jayboy, 14; Jaynilyn, 11; and Jaymar, 9.

“I’m excited,” she said, smiling shyly.

The Umacam family used to live in a wooden shack along the Pasig River. Since being relocated here in November last year, their father had thankfully found work as a security guard at the National Housing Authority office, while their mother sometimes volunteers in church. There are days, though, when there’s simply no food to put on the table.

“I have heard of horrible stories,” said Consuelo “Zondy” Garcia, Country Manager of Dutch financial giant ING Bank in Manila, which is building 100 houses here and has sponsored the feeding program. “I was told that poverty is so bad in some areas that there are kids who didn’t know any better and would pick up dirt. Why would they eat dirt? Because it’s filling. And they’re hungry.”

A group of ING employee volunteers brought and handed out packed lunches and drinks. Like doting parents, they remind the kids to eat their vegetables. And as soon as everyone was done, they made the kids line up for a special treat that they can bring home to their families.

“It is gratifying to be able to do something,” Zondy said. “You can see how happy they are and you know you are able to relieve some of their burden."

In the afternoon, 100 kids joined ING employees for some fun and games at the multipurpose hall. Jecell’s team, which included her brother Jaymar, won a round of Pinoy Henyo. The category was food.

Jecell, who is an ABS-CBN Bantay Bata scholar, said she will be graduating from high school in March. But college will have to wait, as her mother had already started to find her work, hopefully a nice home that needs a househelp.

Jecell insisted putting off her dream to finish a computer science course is no big deal. After all, she has already been doing household chores and looking after her siblings since she was eight years old. When Typhoon Ondoy hit and floodwaters started rising inside their house in Paco, her parents weren’t around. She brought her siblings to a nearby five-storey tenement building for safety, while she hurriedly took any valuables she could salvage. That night, they slept with wet clothes, and had to bear with the discomfort. But at least they were all safe.

“The kids here really have to mature beyond their age,” Zondy said. “They need to grow up early. The kids take care of the younger kids because their parents are elsewhere looking for livelihood.”

Jecell is frail and barely five feet tall, but she talks like an experienced adult. Several of her friends have gotten pregnant at an early age and their babies are now added mouths to feed for their parents.

“I can’t afford to just think about myself. My younger siblings need me. Maybe when Jayboy finishes high school and we are both working, things will be different. But for now, we live from day to day,” she said.

And so for most of these kids, the few hours that the feeding program and the games lasted may very well be their last taste of childhood.

For the ING employees, seeing the plight of the kids just adds fire to the spirit of volunteerism that Zondy said is already ingrained in the DNA of the company.

“We’ve always had something special for kids, as part of ING Global's Chances for Children program. ING Manila was one of the first to do it in a much more integrated way," she said.

In Baseco, Tondo where ING has built 175 houses for the poor, an ING Learning Center also stands witness to the company's more than 20-year commitment to the country. "ING employee volunteers have been conducting tutorial classes there every Saturday for five years now. We really try to raise the bar to make our efforts sustainable," she added. “There is always something more that we can do.”

By 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the kids slowly walked back to their houses, with smiles on their faces and their arms brimming with goodies. After an hour of games, they remained energetic. And as the vehicles of the exhausted ING employees passed by, the kids waved, and that, said Zondy, is more than enough inspiration to keep them coming back to do more.