A young model shows one of the flower-based fashion designs to be featured in the Festival of Trees this October at the Manila Polo Club. (Photo by REGIE MASON)

Artists, florists, designers, businesspeople and Manila society’s well-known personalities and their families will once again come together for the spectacular fund-raising event known as the 14th Festival of Trees on October 7, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Manila Polo Club.

Themed “Celebrations,” the 2009 Festival of Trees promises to be an exciting and enthralling event featuring a floral fashion show, with models strutting down the catwalk in clothes accentuated with beautiful flowers that reflect the different celebrations of the year from the Santacruzan, Mother’s Day, Earth Day, Valentine’s Day, to Christmas.

The show will be made possible by the generous support of florists, designers, and the artists of Repertory Philippines, who have provided assistance in the artistic execution and by lending the gowns for the event.

In addition to the anticipated fashion show, the program will include an inspirational message by Manuel V. Pangilinan, honorary chairman of the 14th Festival of Trees, and chairman of PLDT and Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), as well as dinner and an oral auction of a painting by Edgar Doctor, one of the country’s renowned visual artists.

Festival of Trees started in 1995, owing its conception to then Makati Garden Club (MGC) President Mindy Perez-Rubio who had the idea of holding a formal dinner cum auction of beautifully designed Christmas trees and paintings. The concept was brought to the attention of her mother-in-law Ma. Luisa Perez Rubio, incidentally the chairman of MGC and then president of PBSP.

This inspiration has in turn produced PBSP’s biggest and longest fund-raising event dedicated to forwarding education, providing financial aid to the country’s less fortunate and advancing socio-economic growth and environmental protection in the areas that need it most.

Festival of Trees has raised millions of pesos for a number of beneficiaries through the years, the latest of which were the survivors of the 2006 Southern Leyte landslide through PBSP’s Southern Leyte Rehabilitation Program. Other past endeavors include rehabilitation assistance to families hit by Typhoon Reming in Bicol and the rehabilitation and regeneration of depleted marine and upland resources of 14 municipalities in Maqueda Bay, Western Samar.

This year’s Festival of Trees will focus on promoting the value of caring for the environment and education for disadvantaged children in Mindanao, uniting the advocacies of PBSP and Makati Garden Club.

Funds will be raised for Project Escuelas to aid schools in Basilan and Maguindanao, two of the country’s most deprived and war-torn provinces, by making quality education more accessible. Through FOT, sponsors have the opportunity to help build a new classroom, provide new textbooks for the students, fund the purchase of desks and chairs, or donate school supplies.

For more information, please contact The Festival of Trees Secretariat email pbsp@pbsp.org.ph or log on to www.pbsp.org.ph.