It all began in the year 1999, and along with fears of the Y2K bug and frenzy over the new millennium, there was also a strong universal last-minute drive to leave the dwindling 90’s with purpose. In the United Kingdom, then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sir Richard Greenbury of Marks and Spencer, and the New Millennium Experience Company started Children’s Promise, a fundraising campaign that aims to solicit contributions from the last-hour equivalent of companies’ and individuals’ earnings.

The idea grew and went global, with the US-based International Youth Foundation. Apparently, the Philippines was exception. Top businessman and IYF member, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, brought the campaign here. And thus Children’s Hour Philippines was born.

Children’s Hour garnered much support from other socially committed entrepreneurs and civic leaders in its first operation here in the Philippines. A dynamic steering committee was formed to oversee the four-month campaign. By the new millennium, some 83,112 individuals and 391 companies nationwide had responded, raising over PhP 30 million, and benefiting 23 charities that included Bantay Bata, Tabang Mindanaw II, International Deaf Education Association, Kamalayan Development Foundation, Bulig Foundation, the Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education, and the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children Project. So many in the Philippines devoted the last working hour of the millennium to the campaign that it ranked among the most effective campaigns in the global effort.

What was supposed to be an end-of-the-millennium campaign has prospered to a full force operation in 2003, due to the overwhelmingly generous response, and the continued clamor for children’s aid. Since then, it has been established as an NGO, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and accredited by the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC). The seal of approval from PCNC means corporations corporate donations given to us are tax deductible.