Years of Quietly Giving
Courtenay residents Marvin
and Victoria McLeod have spent nearly two decades quietly making
the world a better place. In 1993 they founded the Simple
Smile Foundation.
They possess neither large personal wealth nor the time and freedom
of youth, but over the last 18 years, the couple has become a beacon
of hope for poor students. Each year, Marvin and Victoria bring crates
of school supplies and everyday essentials to over 650 poverty-stricken
students in the Philippines; things like running shoes, used backpacks,
pencils, pens and crayons.

The pair spends several months at a time in the Southeast Asian country,
on a one-hectare parcel of land on which they live with an adopted
family of 10.
They are known by the local children
as 'Tito' and 'Tita;' a rough translation of 'uncle' and 'aunt'
in English. The affectionate namesakes are bestowed with good reason.
The crates the McLeods bring contain items that are taken for granted
by most Canadian school children, but considered unattainable by
the vast majority of Filipinos between first and sixth grade.
Victoria knows this reality all too well. She was born and grew
up in the village of Calatrava, in the province of Negros Occidental,
a few minutes' drive from her and her husband's home in the Philippines.
She recalls her days as a poor student. Her father and other volunteers
had built the elementary school nearby, but it was a poor community.
One memory in particular illustrates what times were like for the
young Victoria.
"I remember when I was little, my teacher broke my pencil
in half so that it could be shared," she said. "And I
cried."
She said it is not uncommon to see children there playing with
makeshift soccer balls made out of bound-together plant leaves.
The sad thing, she said, is that years later, nothing much has
changed.
"People are still very, very, very poor," said Victoria,
who works in the Comox Valley as an esthetician. "If you don't
have a high school uniform, you don't go to school." She began
donating her tips from work to purchase school uniforms and has
to date clothed 39 students.
Marvin is Canadian-born and never expected his life would turn
out as it has, he said. The retired mechanic donates most of his
pension and spends over $5,000 annually purchasing equipment and
used items for the children, including shoes, used computers and
typewriters. Because the couple relies mostly on Victoria's income,
they live modestly in a two-room home and scrimp and save for their
trips to the Philippines.
Marvin recalled meeting his future wife at a Manila hotel gift
shop in 1989, where she was staying on business as an assistant
at the South African embassy in Taiwan. A friendship developed
over a cup of coffee, leading to letter correspondence over three
years, then finally a marriage in 1992. When the newlywed couple
visited Victoria's family in the Philippines, Marvin was aghast. "I
was shocked so much by the poverty, I told her, 'Take a good look
at your town, because we're not coming back,'" he said.
But the couple did return in 1997, three years after they began
sponsoring students. While Victoria can only spend one month at
a time overseas due to work commitments, Marvin stays there for
up to six months.
"What I saw and talking to the kids made me think, I've got
to go back there and see what I can do," he said.
The self-described handyman has used his time well. He and his
adopted family have connected one of the local schools to electrical
and water lines, an essential infrastructure upgrade that otherwise
would not have been completed.
"The government does nothing for them - that's the bottom
line," he said.
He and Victoria also pay tuition for two college students, at a
cost of $100 per term each - a small amount of money that can make
all the difference, said Victoria, who left her village at age
14 to look for opportunities elsewhere. Two years ago, the couple
asked the students to write letters requesting items they needed
for school, and have been flooded by responses.
"I am Daniela-Ann J. Ermita, Grade 6 pupil, with five in the family," reads
one in broken English. "My mother is a house maid, and my father did not
support my family because she have a new family but I pray to lord that he
gave a good life. I need a big support because my mother cannot afford this
things." Then a list: school uniform, shoes, sandals, bag, school supplies.
"We are five in a family," reads another
letter by Leah Mae M. Mediana, also in Grade 6. "My father
is only a driver and my mother is a house wife. His income is cannot
[afford] this things. I wish I have a school supplies, a school
shoes, a bag, and a uniform. I am so very, very poor, I need your
support."
With their next trip planned, the McLeods are asking Comox Valley
residents for help, particularly with the cost of shipping the
boxes of supplies overseas, which amounts to hundreds of dollars.
Below is a list of some of the items the students have requested:
- Small garden tools such as gloves or trowels
- Globes, maps and dictionaries
- Backpacks, new and used
- Shoes, clothing and socks
- Computers and typewriters
- Pens, pencils, markers, crayons
- Blankets, raincoats, umbrellas
Click
on a photo below to enlarge
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If you wish to donate items
or money to the Simple
Smile Foundation, you can contact the McLeods directly
at 250-338-6648 or by e-mail at Marv36@shaw.ca. Go
to Victoria's Aesthetics & Footcare. |