For St Mary’s Whanganui parishioner Neomili Bondoc, the Starfish Project began after a vehicle incident in Singapore in 2013 left her with a serious leg fracture and a week-long hospital stay.
She returned home to the Philippines to recover. Unemployed and in debt, she wanted to thank God for the many people who had loved and cared for her.
“I felt called to form an outreach programme, inspired by the Starfish Story. Amidst my self-doubt, I just heard God say, ‘Go ahead, my child. Do it,’” the early childhood educator explained.
The story tells of a child throwing stranded starfish back into the ocean after low tide, before they perish from lack of oxygen. A man stopped and asked why the child bothered when there were hundreds. The child picked up another starfish, tossed it into the waves and said, “Well, it made all the difference to that one.”
And so the Starfish Project began. It is held each August, the month of Neomili’s accident. Wherever she is living, God places the theme for that year’s activity on her heart.
Her first project saw her celebrate her 30th birthday with abandoned elderly residents at Anawin Resthome in her hometown.
After moving to Singapore, she organised games for children at the Kasih Agape Orphanage, shouted them lunch, and gave them blankets and clothes. That was the 2016 project.
In Indonesia, she worked with girls in a shelter. Together, they painted a bright mural depicting the families they dreamed of having one day. That was the 2017 project.
During her next four years teaching in Singapore, Neomili focused her outreach on elderly people who sold packets of tissues on the streets rather than beg for money. She gathered 200 volunteers and provided funds for them to buy tissues from the sellers.
After gaining a work visa to teach in New Zealand in 2022, she settled in Whanganui. The following year, she led a Painting for Our Mother Mary workshop and gifted the money raised to St Mary’s Parish.
For the project’s 10th anniversary in 2024, she organised a Gumboot Friday Walk at Majestic Square in central Whanganui. Supporting the I Am Hope Foundation’s national appeal, the event raised $3,500 through a Givealittle page.
Late last August, Neomili shipped 10 boxes of preloved clothes, shoes, canned goods, noodles, chocolates, toys and other goodies to the Philippines. Donated by the Filipino community, the items were sorted and packed during a spirit-filled working bee, while monetary gifts covered the postage.
And what is next for this starfish thrower?
“God will tell me,” said this woman of faith.
Photo (left – right): Joy Ann Waayman, Giovanni Penaflorida, Teresa Diolosa, Lina Watson, John Oca and Neomili Bondoc with donations from the Filipino community.
