Lili Occena's fundraiser for Vibha Striders 2020

Fundraising for Vibha Striders 2020 Master Fundraiser

Would you like to help me support a great cause and reach a personal goal?  

I am supporting Vibha Striders 2020 Fund Raiser to help address the problem of the lack of education of underprivileged children.  My running will support my personal goals as well as Vibha's 2020 Fund Raising.  I will do the work on behalf of you by doing all the running!  While training, so far, I have accomplished two personal goals, completed a 5k and 10k events (Run4Wine and Wharf-to-Wharf).  My next race is Dream Mile X running 50 Miles (individually and relay) for the month of September.

I ran my first Half Marathon in 2007 and a second in 2008.  Several years ago, I had another personal goal: to run one more Half Marathon and a Full Marathon. But I wanted to train for them in the right way.  I searched for self-guided How-To's for running clubs and asked for help from friends and family members, but I never found what felt comfortable for me.  I was introduced to Vibha Striders by a co-worker and attended an informational meeting. Every one of the coaches, mentors and current members were genuinely friendly and encouraging.  As they were showing videos and pictures of the children, it brought back memories. I am not sure if many of you know that the U.S. became my country when I moved from The Philippines when I was only 10 years old.  I was born in the province of Sibalom, Antique and later moved to Manila in preparation for immigrating to California. We moved to Quezon City when my mom received her degree in education and became a teacher at a private Catholic school. My brother and I were fortunate when it came to structured education at an early age, but I know that many of the children in the province had limited access to education.  I came from a place where there was no electricity, no running water (got our water from a community well), the river flooded once a year, and many people worked in the rice fields. After hearing about how Vibha programs provide for children where education is not available, I was inspired.

Vibha is committed to bringing together both the public and private sector to strengthen infrastructure and provide mechanisms for sustainable access to education. Through Vibha's model of seed, scale, and grow, our projects, as an example, have helped expand public education programs from 15 to 43,000 schools in one state in India. As a result, this success has now become the template to expand to other states.

I became a Vibha Striders in February of this year.  As Vibha Striders, we believe that molding young minds will give them the freedom to choose a better life. Every mile we run and every dollar we raise, is another massive step to helping these kids achieve their dreams.

Please donations of any amount are welcome, and every contribution will help to reach my goal.

Thank you for reading my personal journey.

-Lili

About Vibha

Vibha's vision is to ensure every underprivileged attains quality education. Vibha educates, enables and empowers, individuals who wish to make a positive impact on the lives of underprivileged children. Since our inception in 1991, Vibha has supported more than 250 projects in India and 10 projects in the US. As a result, Vibha has been able to reach out to and provide opportunities for over 2.3 million underprivileged children. Currently, Vibha supports 15 projects in India and 3 projects in the US.

All donations to Vibha are tax deductible. Vibha is a 501(c)(3) organization, registered in the USA in the State of New Jersey. Vibha's Tax ID is 22-3122761.