Category: Charity

This Giving Tuesday – Buy a Brick!

This Giving Tuesday – Buy a Brick!

By Greg Leave a comment 29 Nov 2016

Hi Guys,

Greg here, the CEO and Founder of the Greg Secker Foundation. I wanted to speak to you today as Giving Tuesday is finally here!

For some of you, this might be the first time you hear about giving Tuesday and you might ask yourself, what’s this Giving Tuesday and, when is it?  Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving, takes place on the Tuesday following Black Friday and Cyber Monday and is a chance to give something back after indulging in retail therapy! This year Giving Tuesday falls on November 29th and we at the Greg Secker Foundation want to encourage you to donate time, money or your voice to help a good cause. Be it for us or for another organisation, get involved this giving Tuesday and get your karma back on track.

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In 2015 #GivingTuesday was the number one twitter handle and per minute Giving Tuesday saw £6,000 donated to charity. Now that is what I call amazing!

Today is all about giving back to society. After going sales mad the last few days it’s time to get our karma back on track. Spend some of the money you’ve saved on Black Friday and cyber Monday, and either donate to charity or spend some time volunteering with a local organisation.

I for one am donating to the Greg Secker Foundation, slightly biased I know but what can I say.. We have a great programme! The team and I are focusing on raising funds for our housing building project in the Philippines – Build a House, Build a Home. The foundation is building 100 homes for people whose lives were devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. We’re building homes strong enough to withstand future typhoons, a multipurpose training centre, and are partnering with the Central Philippine University to provide lifesaving skills training. If you are interested in getting involved, why not join us this Giving Tuesday?  

Buy a brick and send us your #BrickPic?

The staff at my company Learn to Trade got involved and made this hilarious small clip, encouraging people to “do the #BrickPic” – check it out! 

 

Let’s see if we can break last year’s record and make donations of £7,000 per minute! 

Come on folks, buy a brick for £5. Join us and send us your #BrickPic today!

Love,

Greg xx

Media coverage from our July trip

Media coverage from our July trip

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 30 Jul 2016

“We want to help our beneficiaries thrive, not just survive. Providing them with the skills will make them resilient,”

– Greg Secker.

We’re in the The Daily Guardian! It’s been a bit over one week since our team was in Lemery helping with housing construction and breaking the ground for the next iteration. We are so lucky to have great supporters and to be welcomed with open arms from the government, local officials, the media, and most of all the community of Lemery!

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Our second groundbreaking was followed closely by Philippine media and our visit in the Philippines started with a press conference in Manila before flying to Iloilo. 

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The foundation featured in ABS-CBN’s Fish n’ Town show as well as several newspapers and radio channels.

I highly recommend reading some of the great articles written on our Build a House, Build a Home project by the Manila Standard Today, Philippine Star and The Manila Times.

All our media coverage can also be found on our media page, so make sure to check it out! 

 

Greg volunteering on site

Greg volunteering on site

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 23 Jul 2016

The time has finally come. Greg and some of the directors of his companies have the past few days been volunteering on site, doing tasks such as painting, landscaping, and filling sand bags. 

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We started the trip with a groundbreaking ceremony for the new iteration of houses.

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We are close to completion on the first iteration with 20 homes, with the next iteration of 30 homes now underway.

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The foundation is very close to Greg’s heart and working for the foundation is like being adopted into the Secker family. It was therefore a no-brainer that he brought his parents along to the trip. John Secker was painter extraordinaire and Sandy Secker was the chief water woman!

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Everyone was put to work during the day, even Micheal, one of our donors who just sponsored a family home. Micheal spent his spare time from filling sandbags, getting to know the family that he is giving a new lease in life.

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In the evening we celebrated with the workers and beneficiaries. Karaoke is very big in the Philippines, so each night when the sky became dark, the Karaoke machine was put to work. Young and old gathered together to sing, some better than others, but all entertaining in their own way.  

First Employee Volunteers

First Employee Volunteers

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 3 Jul 2016

For years Greg’s companies have been supporting the charity financially. Now staff have a chance to get hands-on and get a personal connection with the project!  The first Employee Volunteers went out on the 25th of July and were on site till the 1st of July.

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Abi, Barbie and Jonny from LTT UK, SA and Phil have been great and got properly stuck in with painting. It’s been a very warm week, with the occasional thunderstorms, but the team have just carried on and worked really well with our engineers and workers. 

DR and I are very happy to have had the opportunity to work with them this week and see first hand their enthusiasm for the project grow day by day. 

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On day four of volunteering, our dedicated team met with Raffy. Raffy is one of the Foreman on site, currently leading a team of 8 workers to build two houses of the first 20. Raffy and his family are one of the many beneficiaries of the project. He showed the volunteers his handy work and stopped outside what is to be his and his family’s home. He was very proud when he told them about the hard work and love he’s put into the building and made them all laugh by claiming it’s the best looking out of all of them! (They have identical designs). It was a very busy day where the volunteers painted not one but three houses! The highlight though is the truly humbling experience of meeting such great and inspirational people like Raffy.

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As well as painting houses, the volunteers have also helped with the beneficiary selection. They have gone through close to 150 applications and rated them as yes, maybe or no. The first stage of beneficiary selection has now finished and stage two is due to start, with Greg taking over the helm. 

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Next employee volunteers to come on the site is Greg and some of the directors of his companies! I for one am really looking forward to telling my boss what to do on a construction site. Now that is something that doesn’t happen every day. 

This cannot be missed, so stay tuned! 

Medical Clinic

Medical Clinic

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 17 Jul 2016

horfi-kids-preformingHad such a great time at the Manila-based orphanage, House of Refuge, handing over the medical clinic we have sponsored for the orphanage! 

Now some of you might not know that Greg’s grandmother was an orphan who was taken in by Dr. Barnardo’s. Greg often says that if it wasn’t for him, he might not be here today. Children and especially orphans are therefore very close to the Foundations heart. Last year, Greg visited the House of Refuge, as a part of a Christmas initiative he does with staff from his companies to provide Christmas joy to the less fortunate called Basket Brigade. Each year, Greg and his companies find a local cause close to their office and donate care packages in form of food and presents for children. In 2015, the Philippines-based staff of Learn to Trade went to House of Refuge, an orphanage that cares for abandoned and neglected children who live or work on the streets.

When there, Greg heard their plans to build a medical centre for the children under their care. These remarkable young children have been through a lot, and when they are rescued, suffer from multiple conditions which need medical care. House of Refuge has doctors that volunteer at their centre, but sometimes needed to take the children to the hospital to spend the night or to do more checks. For some of the children, it was quite traumatic to be taken away from a space where they finally felt safe, so the refuge wanted to expand their services and provide the children with holistic care at their own premises. 

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Greg and the team were so inspired by the hard work of the House of Refuge staff, and the change this fantastic charity has made to the lives of hundreds of children. At the time, the orphanage had one major donor covering half of the cost of the medical centre. After speaking to the board, we decided that the foundation would help them in reaching their goal and decided to fund the remaining so the kids would have their new medical clinic. Two months later the other donor pulled through, but we felt that this was something the children could really benefit from and decided to shoulder the entire cost to help them.

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We are so happy to announce that in July that promise was fulfilled and we opened the doors to a brand new two-storey medical clinic kitted out with medical equipment and child-friendly furniture. It’s been so appreciated that the children sometimes pretend to be sick, just so they can spend the night in one of the two sick rooms and play with the toys. We are so happy to be able to assist this fantastic organisation and so grateful to be a part of these wonderful and talented children’s lives!

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The clinic is dedicated and named after Greg’s grandmother, Maud Chapel.

It’s been a truly great and emotional day for us all and with that, we sign off for today.

GSF Summer BBQ

GSF Summer BBQ

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 18 Aug 2016

singerYesterday, we held a fundraising event for the Manila-based orphanage, House of Refuge Foundation. The funds raised go towards providing their new medical clinic (sponsored by the Greg Secker Foundation) with medical equipment, medicine, and other supplies.  

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We had such an amazing time and have had such great feedback from the guests!

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All the funds raised goes towards purchasing medical equipment and medicine for the House of Refuge who we sponsored with a medical clinic earlier this summer. 

Happy International Literacy Day

Happy International Literacy Day

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 8 Sep 2016

Happy International Literacy Day everyone! On this great day, we want to share a story from one of our beneficiaries.

Agatha,  is one of our beneficiaries from our Build a House, Build a Home project. She is a very clever girl but comes from a poor background where the parents have struggled to afford to send their children to school and to find the time to help them with homework. She only has access to books and writing materials at school and even they suffer from a limited supply. That, however, has not stopped Agatha. She has a passion for learning and has just received a star from school for excelling at her work. She’s only 5 and already speaks and writes a little English! We are so proud of her and her sisters and are looking forward to seeing her continue to shine in the years to come.

Literacy breaks barriers and builds bridges. That is why literacy plays such a key role in all the projects we have and charities we support.

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Nobody said it better than Kofi Annan:

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right…. Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”

New board members GSF UK

New board members GSF UK

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 23 Sep 2016

Just had a great board meeting with our new board members. A huge welcome from the GSF team to Beth Honig, Dr John Demartini, April Chandler and James Matthews! 

First Board Meeting for GSF PH

First Board Meeting for GSF PH

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 27 Sep 2016

The last two weeks have been weeks of firsts for our boards. Last Friday we had the first board meeting with the new board members of GSF UK and today we’ve had the first board meeting with GSF Philippines! We are all very excited about the Build a House, Build a Home project and are all working to deliver the best possible programme going forward in terms of skills training and livelihood projects.

We’re happy to announce the new board as Greg Secker, Amy Leveson Gower, James Mathews, Glady Bunau, DR June Sanico and Fransisco B. Figura.

The Greg Secker Foundation loves Philippine Fashion!

The Greg Secker Foundation loves Philippine Fashion!

By Marie Sorli Leave a comment 16 Oct 2016

We had such a great time at MoDa de Filipinas – London’s exciting new showcase for emerging South East Asian Designers on Saturday!

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Thank you to Ronnie Del Barrio and Ditsé Productions for an amazing event and for their warm words about the work of the Greg Secker Foundation in the Philippines and our Build a House, Build a Home programme, and to the Philippine Ambassador and Embassy for their keen interest in our project. We are sure we’ll work together in the future and are looking forward to seeing all the talented Philippine Designs to come.

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Greg with His Excellency Evan P. Garcia, the Philippine Ambassador to the UK.

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Marie with Her Excellency Jocelyn Batoon Garcia, former Philippine Ambassador to Thailand.

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Greg and his partner Rachel at the photo wallÂÂ