Helping Hands World Wide Services, Inc., founded in Murfreesboro, has helped more than 10,000 people in the Philippines since its inception. Now the nonprofit is looking for more ways to expand to assist people here in Rutherford County and beyond.

The idea for Helping Hands came about as its founder, Fidel Pinote, was going back and forth between the Philippines and the U.S., aiding people whenever he traveled.

“He grew up in a dilapidated school with no chairs or tables, and no money for school,” said Helping Hands CEO Mila Vazquez. “So he said his goal is that every time he comes back he will help out people, because now he is in America and is going back to the Philippines and can afford it.

“He formed an organization to make it more official. He approached me, and we worked on getting the 501(c)(3) certification. We started with just $500 in 2014.”

Helping Hands has developed since then with three pillars—health, education and infrastructure—and every pillar has its own projects. Under the health pillar, Helping Hands has launched Project RICE (Regain Insufficient Calories to gain Energy) with a mission to feed kids and assist them medically. Then, under the education pillar, they have educational program assistance initiatives and, under infrastructure, the group helps install community water pumps and helps with natural disaster relief needs.

Helping Hands wants to assist locally and worldwide, and they are looking for more volunteers, including directors and a few board members, said Vazquez.

“Our activities and meetings usually happen here in Murfreesboro because most of our officers are from here,” Vazquez said. “Most of the officers are professionals, and they have devoted their time and talent through the years. The dedication makes it work.

“Most of our work is overseas right now because we can relate to the Philippines, we are mostly Filipino. We have 16 chapters and directors in the Philippines. The directors send us a proposal of what they need, then we send them the funds. Usually for simple things that mean a lot.”

She said, they recently gave food bags for 200 people; $3 can feed 15 people. Able to send a lot of help to the Philippines because of the favorable currency conversion rate, they have reached at least 10,000 people already.

“Another time, we provided electric fans to a Philippine school,” Vazquez said. “They don’t have [air conditioning]. When we asked the school what they needed, they asked for an electric fan, so we provided it. In another case we provided a well; a water pump—one water pump will be providing water to a whole community.”

This project cost around $500.

“It is encouraging that we are able to help this much,” she said. “Our most recent medical mission was in 2019. We were able to reach out to 800-some people. We will have another medical mission next October. We are asking people here if they want to go, volunteer, or donate. The medical mission lasts a few days, and I usually go to the Philippines for two or three weeks.”

Helping Hands’ vision is to provide “a helping hand for an improved quality of life in our community, one individual at a time.”

“We are looking for people who would like to be a part of the organization,” Vazquez said. “This can be anyone. We are not just looking for people from the Philippines . . . as long as they have a giving heart. We need more volunteers, and we need people who want to be leaders. We need one or two more people for our board of directors: we need a marketing director, an infrastructure development director and a disaster relief director.”

Helping Hands is a small organization, where everyone is a volunteer and overhead is only about 5 percent, so about 95 percent of proceeds goes to the people they serve.

Helping Hands has a yearly fundraising masquerade ball in Murfreesboro. In 2022 it was held at the Fountains at Gateway in October and at least 400 people attended.

Locally, Helping Hands has also been participating with groups helping with local needs like Habitat for Humanity, building homes, and The Journey Home, feeding the homeless. The organization also helps a Filipino American group in Columbia, Tennessee, that operates a free medical clinic in the United States.

“It’s a work in progress to see what we can do in the United States, especially in the Rutherford County area,” Vazquez said. “Our founder wants to do a free medical clinic here in Murfreesboro like they are doing in Columbia. . . . It takes a lot of finances to do something like that, because comparing it to $3 to feed 15 people, here you are looking at $15,000 or maybe $25,000 to be able to do that free medical clinic.”

To learn more about Helping Hands, visit helpinghandstn.org, email Mila Vazquez at ceo@helpinghandstn.org or call 615-442-6370.