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c h i k k a
b u z z
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KRISTINE FONACIER
ON THIS
particular 5J 625 Cebu Pacific flight
from Manila to Dumaguete, there was a seven-
year-old girl pretending to be asleep. There
was also a bear named Mr. Hugs, almost larger
than the girl, who was buckled in to the seat
next to her.
The girl’s name was Bronte Henfling, and
she was pretending to be asleep because
the stewardess had just called out her name
and she was too shy to face a planeload of
passengers applauding her.
Why were the passengers of 5J 625
applauding? As the stewardess explained,
Bronte, the flight’s very special passenger,
was on her way to the small community of La
Libertad in Negros Oriental — one of the towns
hit by landslides caused by last February’s
earthquake. Almost two months later, La
Libertad had turned into a tent city, with
houses buried by mud, swept away by flood,
or too unstable to be safe. There were still
some aid coming in, and agencies working to
continue to ensure the health and safety of La
Libertad’s remaining residents, but Bronte was
on a special mission for the children. She was
there to bring teddy bears.
“A toy is like someone’s life to a little
child!” Bronte had exclaimed, teary-eyed, in
a YouTube video that she had shot by herself,
asking people to imagine themselves in the
place of thousands of Filipino children who had
survived deadly natural calamities.
Bronte had been in the Philippines for a
couple of months — both her parents worked
in the movie industry, and her dad was part of
the crew of
The Bourne Legacy
— when she
saw how Typhoon Sendong ripped through
Cagayan de Oro. Bronte was especially
saddened by the children she saw in the
news footage, and wondered how she could
help. Her parents, Skip Henfling and Megan
Worthy, saw a poster at a Starbucks branch
that advertised a toy drive by a group called
the Black Pencil Project, asking for teddy bears
that were to be sent to the children that had
been made homeless by Sendong. The family
thought that it was a terrific idea, and Bronte
threw herself into the project.
A special reach-out to kids by a
kid puts the spotlight on the little
victims of big natural disasters
Bear hugs
Clockwise: Bronte Henfling (right)
helped gather and distribute bears to
the victims of disaster-stricken areas
in the Philippines; with her mom on
their way to Negros Oriental