THE GESMUNDO FOUNDATION

San Pablo City - Many Filipino immigrants in United States, upon receiving their green card, return to the country to dispose or convert their real estate properties for its fair cash value to avoid the inconvenience or whatever discomfort it might bring as future American citizen. But not San Pableño couple Jess and Antonina Gesmundo of Barangay Sta. Catalina who had preserved what they left behind as permanent link of the past, trying times of hard works into the present outpouring blessing to the present and future.

The couple maintains their ancestral home sprawled on a one-hectare lot at their Sta. Catalina’s property. Jess works as an insurance broker while Antonina is a medical doctor in their new settlement. The overhead maintenance didn’t bothered them considering even the real estate taxes to a property that will not bear economic gains. But idle as it is, it gave them inspiration derived from an instinct that haunts their mind as placing it hopefully for a useful future advocacy. They were right after all, with bountiful harvests ahead!

Having been successful in the United States, the couple would not or could not ask for more but share their blessings. They founded and registered at the State of Missouri THE GESMUNDO FOUNDATION eight years ago, converting their Sta. Catalina property to a modest library equipped with text books cataloged from generalities to Philosophy and Psychology, Religion, Social Studies, Language, Natural Science and Mathematics and Applied Science.

What’s truly amazing is the reference books section. Name any encyclopedia this modern world has ever published and there can be no private library as complete as The Gesmundo Foundation Library. Nobody wouldn’t even imagine seeing the replica of the First Edition of Encyclopedia Britannia published in 1768 on its shelves.

The Library Building amidst the well kept lawn has its own story to tell. Its pathways leading to semi-complete pavilion honors the Gesmundo offspring. The Cristina and Clarissa Lanes are for daughters who are both medical doctors while the Celsus Kiet Lane is for hijo de familia who is still pursuing a medical course and are all settled in USA. Their success can really be pictured from a well-bred family.

The Gesmundo couple together with Clarissa are now in town not for a routine visit nor for a vacation break but to share their blessing to the less fortunate kababayans. They have just finished donating personal computers to different schools in the city’s “Horseshoe District”. The family foundation brought numerous medicines and medical supplies enough to sustain their ongoing 2-day medical and dental missions.

They are leaving for USA soon but their love to San Pableños according to Jess and Antonina will stay. The couple, although both semi-retired once there, will resume to value precious man-hours – the key of their success in the land of milk and honey, a trait worthy of emulation of men and women who treasure Filipino heritage. (NANI CORTEZ/Pres. 7 Lakes Press Corps)