It has been an incredibly long, hard week for us, HOCT coordinators. We have distributed hundreds of tons of food (very literally and without exaggerating), and after having finished this task (at around 9 PM each evening) we spent other countless hours working on reporting and the distribution of photos towards the long-distance parents.

But at the end of the day, we are so happy! Children have food, toys, even meat and juice, they will prepare a good Christmas meal that will be filling and nourishing, so it was all so well worth.

I would have never thought to have so many children registered in the system, when I first started coordinating HOCT. But here we are, years later, nearing 700 children and managing to also feed about 100 others through one-time donations from HOCT’s good friends. I am happy and grateful and honored by the people’s trust. HOCT was founded on mutual confidence, and the results are showing. Needless to say, we are not perfect, and we also do our share of mistakes, but we acknowledge them, and we fix them. At HOCT, we work with love, we learn how to do things better each day, we cherish each other, and we build.