Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/1293955
NCU GRAD GIVES BACK, RECEIVES SERVICE AWARD STUDENT CENTRIC. REGIONALLY ACCREDITED. NONPROFIT. 5 Recent NCU graduate Joy Escobal-Luea, PhD, is the recipient of the 2020 Community Service Award from NCU's Lambda Eta Chapter of Delta Mu Delta. Delta Mu Delta is an international honors society open to doctoral students with GPAs above 3.8. Dr. Escobal-Luea spearheaded an initiative that has sent thousands of children's books to the Philippines. "Our book project started in 2015, two years after our home province of Bohol was devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Besides immediate fundraising activities to help those affected, a visit to the Philippines inspired me to create a nonprofit organization," she says. She invited her high school classmates around the globe to get involved. They donated food and together funded a new building at their old school. Her nonprofit then partnered with the public library in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, where Dr. Escobal-Luea lives. The library agreed to donate used children's books whenever they culled their collection. Dr. Escobal-Luea and her husband and son pack and ship them to Bohol. She estimates they've sent over 2,000 books so far. "It took me a lot of courage to approach one of the library's board of directors to donate used books and support our project," she says. But the approach has paid off, and elementary school children across the province are enjoying their picture books. "Our team vowed to continue this volunteer project as long as there are still books available at the local library."