Christmas: a season of snow, festivities, and receiving presents— but for some, this season represents all they don’t have. But Isabella Alindogan wants to change that, and help people effected by poverty in the Philippines through her non-profit, co-founded with her father in 2020, called “Extending Hands”.

Alindogan said the non-profit started from observing the widespread poverty of children and students in the country— and they knew they could do something with what they have. Through donations from people in the community, Isabella sends money to sponsored underprivileged students to send them to school, through paying for tuition, lunch money, and/or other needed expenses for school.

They connect to these students through “schools or people that my dad finds when he goes to the Philippines. Our family are teachers at elementary schools in the Philippines that are very poor, so he buys food for all the children”.

An encounter her father had exemplified the importance of their work. Alindogan said, “He sponsored a 17-year-old girl he met on the street. She was like in an area of a job that wasn’t exactly respectable.”

Alindogan’s father saw her “crying on the side of the sidewalk” and sat down and talked to her. “She didn’t want that life for her. She was being sex trafficked and had dreams of an education– but she couldn’t get it.” Then he, “sponsored her and sent her to school. Now, she has a degree in law and psychology and is currently working with the mayor of Pasay”. Through education, her life changed for the better. Isabella and her father realized that they could help others the same way they helped her through organizing a non-profit.

Alindogan is in charge of overseeing communication and gathering donations for the organization and helping her dad with everyday procedures. Through this, she learned how privileged she is.

“Even though I am middle class in the U.S., I still have the resources to help many others in the world. Money isn’t the only thing I can do to help but also showing my kindness and sympathy to others”.

Alindogan said, “you have the power to change so many people’s lives with even just a dollar. It’s insane how what may be cheap to us, like a cheap meal from the dollar menu, is a whole feast for a starving child in the Philippines”.