“Education is not just about making people literate. It is about helping the youth find out the reason behind everything through the knowledge they gain,” shares Althea Silvestre.
Silvestre is one of the many graduates who benefitted from a scholarship grant by Max’s Group’s Edgardo S. Trota Memorial Foundation, Inc.
Driven by the values of Edgardo S. Trota, former president of Max’s restaurant, who believed in the importance of the youth finishing school, the ESTMFI scholarship is MGI’s way of making sure every child gets a chance to graduate and succeed—as seen through Silvestre’s story and of other numerous beneficiaries who, with the help of the foundation, are now working in different industries.
Silvestre now puts her Accountancy degree to good use in Max’s Group. With her dad being a waiter at Max’s Luisita Tarlac, the scholar can’t thank the foundation and the group enough for all their help in securing the kind of opportunity her family dreamed of.
“All I have is a grateful heart for Max’s Group,” she enthuses. “The scholarship was a great blessing to me and to my whole family. I can’t thank them enough for bringing me to where I am today. I pray that this foundation continues to touch more lives and be an instrument to help more young individuals achieve their dreams.”
ESTMFI was established in 2000 to support and provide opportunities to improve the standard of living of indigent school children and urban and rural poor communities through various projects and programs. Inspired by Max’s restaurant’s founder Maximo Gimenez, who himself was a scholar at Stanford, the foundation decided to make education a part of its Corporate Sustainability, Synergies, and Relationships initiatives.
Silvestre recently celebrated her first anniversary working as a credit and collection associate in the Accounting Department of MGI.
“Max’s has been so generous for extending my opportunity to work in their company. My career is proof that the foundation creates a huge impact in the lives of young individuals by helping them attain education, which I believe, is essential to achieving one’s goal,” she notes.
Silvestre has this to say to fellow young scholars: “Take advantage of every opportunity to achieve your dream. Realize that success requires hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. Do not stop learning, because through learning, you will know how to really value life and the people that will help you make it to the top.”
In pursuit of providing opportunities to young, deserving Filipinos, ESTMFI recently awarded scholarships to 80 exemplary students across elementary, high school, and college levels for the school year 2019-2020.
From numerous submissions received from different parts of the country, 22 from elementary, 37 from junior high school, 12 from senior high school, and nine from college were awarded scholarships and will each receive tuition assistance and monthly allowance for one school year.