Bringing Christmas to God’s children

For almost two decades, on a Sunday morning early in December, a fleet of buses and vans full of children have converged on a restaurant called Handlebar in Makati. They are welcomed by tough-looking men with big bikes, members of the Mad Dog Motorcycle Club or MDMC, of which I am one.

The children are mostly orphans. On that day, they are the stars of our annual Mad Dog Christmas Toy Run, a painstakingly organized event that is our way of bringing them Christmas and making it real for them. In the motorcycle community worldwide, a Toy Run is a holiday tradition of giving gifts, especially to children. Over time, as Mad Dogs, we have built our own version of this tradition. 

Celebrating our 30th year anniversary recently, MDMC is an independent motorcycle club or MC founded in the Philippines, with chapters in six Asian countries. Our founder, Tom Leber, was the CEO of a pharmaceutical multinational and president of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. Our members come from all walks of life, among them chief executives, businessmen, and professionals. We represent more than 25 nations, bound together by a select brotherhood of camaraderie and hard riding. We live by the precepts of freedom, courage, and loyalty, guided by a code of conduct that includes respect for others.

This year, our Toy Run hosted 256 kids from four institutions, among them indigenous children, whom we have been involved with continuously. Activities and treats featured a photo booth with wacky accouterments, face-painting, balloon twisting, dirty ice cream, taho, cotton candy, and drinks. A festive program featured games, the children (and us) performing songs and dances, a funny magician, and other entertainment. Then for the first time ever, Santa Claus arrived on a big Harley-Davidson decked out with Christmas lights no less, roaring up to Handlebar and right through its doors. As part of tradition, each child received an individually selected Christmas gift, nothing from a mass purchase of items. Then lunch was served to the children, as always only by Mad Dogs. And when the Toy Run was over, we loaded sacks of rice and other food supplies onto the children’s vehicles for them to take home.

“Reaching out to people, doing social outreach activities, has been a Mad Dog commitment since we became an MC in 1994. One of these is our annual Christmas Toy Run. Each time it is a major effort. We raise funds that are carefully accounted for, mainly through an annual golf tournament and a poker run. And we are fortunate to have the support of friends and partners like Handlebar and other companies,” says Mad Dog Philippine chapter president Steve Ayles says.

These Mad Dog outreach activities have ranged from arranging surgery for children in need, numerous medical and dental missions, with up to several hundred patients served in a single day, to working with sick kids including the terminally ill and their parents, visiting orphans, helping indigenous communities, and building water wells for provincial barangays whose residents would walk long distances to fetch potable water. 

The club has a permanent special projects committee chaired by Jess Crisologo that takes charge of social outreach efforts. Jess discloses that properly organizing the Toy Run takes about two months, factoring in the logistics and arrangements required.

“As Mad Dogs, we have families, and we think of the children whom we reach out to as part of ours. They are God’s very own children. We wish we could do more, but we will always do our best,” asserts Jess who speaks fondly of a special child who has attended and helped run our Toy Run programs for years.

My happiest and saddest memory from our Toy Runs is of a seven-year-old boy stricken with leukemia at age two. He had regained enough strength to join one, but it was to be his last. He was gone in a few months.

So why do we really do Toy Runs? If you could see for yourself the joy, the wonder, the excitement on the children’s faces, I think you would understand. Each time they leave after one is over, they are already looking forward to the next year’s edition. As we ourselves are, even while we catch our breath. And I cannot help but remember that special child and that sick boy.