She had planned to climb a mountain alone. Her father had died in 2021, she couldn’t fly home from the UAE in time, and grief had settled into something she thought a hard hike might loosen. What she got instead was a redirection she hadn’t asked for.
Wendy Doll Lusong Arocena, a sales executive from Barangay Balete in Tarlac City and a ten-year overseas Filipino worker, describes the shift in plain terms. “I plan na pag uuwi ako gusto kong umakyat sa bundok pero hindi ko alam saan basta gusto kong umakyat kasi feeling ko sa pag akyat ko ma less yung sakit,” she shares with TGFM. Then, she believes, God intervened. “He wants me to help the KIDS in the mountain since he knows I love kids so much.” The question that landed on her, as she tells it, was simple: “Bakit hindi ka umakyat with mission?”
That was 2022. She still climbed. She just didn’t go alone, and she didn’t go empty-handed.
Why the Aeta families
The mountains of Tarlac and Pampanga are home to Aeta communities, many of them living far enough from town that aid rarely reaches them. Some families receive help; others, by virtue of distance, don’t. “Meron padin hindi since sobrang layo nila sa bayan,” Wendy explains — the ones who get missed are simply too far out.
She named the mission “Akyat Para Kay Kulot” and started with 10 to 15 volunteers. Today she counts almost 35 to 40. The first trip, to Barangay Calapi in Clark, Pampanga, is the one she still measures the others against. With the help of a fellow volunteer, Mayvin Pearl, the group carried everything they had up a route with no road access — more than an hour of climbing on foot because no vehicle could reach the community.
What they brought that first time was modest: old clothes, toys, candies, and food for a feeding program, distributed to about 30 children. What they got back reframed the whole undertaking. “Pag dating namen it’s worth it, the joy of the kids and yung pag welcome nila samen,” she recalls. It was on that mountain, watching the children’s faces, that the group made a decision that has held ever since: “By the grace of God ituloy na natin to hanggat kaya natin.”
From 30 children to 350
The former plan to grieve privately had become a program with reach. Rather than return to the same community each time, Wendy chose to spread the missions out — “kasi gusto namen kumalat ang pag tulong.” She and the volunteers began posting the trips on social media, a decision she is careful to explain wasn’t about display. “We decided to post it in social media not to yabang but to share the happiness to help.”
The donations followed. Between 2024 and 2026, the group reached the Aeta communities of Sitio Flora in Maruglu, Capas; Sitio Buok in Bamban; and Sitio Kamatsili, also in Bamban — all in Tarlac — backed by sponsors who had seen the posts and offered support. The tally now stands at 100 families and 350 children. Each mission runs the same core program: a feeding activity, distribution of food packs and pre-loved clothing, parlor games for the children and seniors, and cash assistance.
This year brought a partner she hadn’t expected. The 31st Mechanized Infantry Company, 3rd Mechanized Battalion, Armor Division of the Philippine Army — the Tarlac-based unit — joined the effort, helping locate families, arranging transport, and turning what had been a strictly volunteer haul into something more coordinated. She calls the military’s involvement “isa sa malaking biyaya samen ngayon.”
The other mission, the one in the UAE
The mountains weren’t the only place Wendy was working. When the pandemic hit and large numbers of Filipinos in the UAE lost their jobs, she and members of her SFC community started a second effort, “Share Your Blessing,” aimed at kababayan facing no work and no pay.
The mechanics were grassroots. Those still earning contributed what they could — some cash, others eggs and rice, others baby supplies like diapers, milk, and clothes. The group posted on social media inviting anyone in need to message privately, then called them one by one to arrange the handover. “We receive a lot of message and we start to call them and give the blessing,” she says. The help wasn’t limited to Filipinos. “Even other nationalities we help to. Since for me helping is no limits.”
When the Turkey-Syria earthquake struck, she folded that same instinct into formal volunteer work in the UAE, showing up whenever organizers emailed asking for hands to pack relief goods. Her reasoning was characteristically practical: in something as simple as packing a box, “marami nang matutulungan.”
What the award actually meant
In 2022, the Filipino Social Club – Dubai gave her the “Ang Magiting na Pinoy” award. She is direct about how she holds it. Recognition was never the point — “gusto ko lang naman talagang mag bigay inspiration sa iba” — but she accepted it as a platform. “Kinuha ko yung chance na yun to give inspiration to everyone.”
What she carried to the ceremony, she says, wasn’t herself. “Ang dala dala ko hindi yung sarili ko kundi lahat ng taong nag dasal at nakasama ko sa journey ng pag tulong.” And the recognition circled back, unexpectedly, to the loss that started everything. For her parents, she says, the award was proof of something: “Na pinalaki nila kong mabuting tao.”
The sales executive is candid that the missions don’t run on a large salary. “Akala nila ang laki ng sahod ko,” she says — the assumption doesn’t match the reality, and there are stretches when she sells goods on the side for extra income. She doesn’t treat that as an obstacle. “For me hindi yun hadlang sa pag tulong.” Her operating principle is a phrase she returns to often: God will provide.
Now the missions have their own momentum. When word spreads that she’s flying home, people ask before she can organize anything: “Kailan ulit ang mission mo?”
Her message to other OFWs who want to help but feel they have too little to give reframes the whole equation. “Helping others is not just about money,” she says. “Kailangan lang natin palaging ilagay ang sarili natin sa sitwasyon ng iba para mas maintindihan natin sila.” She frames it, finally, as a matter of legacy — doing good that the next generation might copy — and anchors it in the two verses she keeps closest, Matthew 22:39 and Matthew 25:40: whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.
