SMBC employees with PAAFI beneficiaries. PHOTO BY AMIE AMADOPHIL-ASIA Assistance Foundation Inc. (PAAFI) received on September 1 a book donation from Sumitomo-Mitsui Banking Corporation Manila Branch (SMBC).

The activity, held at the Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Pasay City, is one of SMBC’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects for the year. It was Lopez Group chairman Manuel M. Lopez, former Philippine ambassador to Japan, who had asked SMBC to consider including PAAFI among the bank’s CSR endeavors.

PAAFI is a nonstock, nonprofit member of Lopez Group Foundation Inc. (LGFI). It provides scholarship grants and other educational assistance to elementary, high school and college students in Metro Manila public schools. PAAFI also initiated the setup of portable libraries in each of its partner parishes.

More than 500 books were donated by SMBC employees.

The donation will serve more than a thousand beneficiaries in all partner parishes of PAAFI.

Present during the activity were Hiroki Nakatsuka, SMBC general manager (GM); Yoshiharu Morimoto, SMBC joint GM; Irma de Guzman, SMBC deputy GM; Maria Amina Amado, PAAFI president; Mitos Santisteban, LGFI consultant; and Fe Beltran, PAAFI coordinator.