Acknowledgments

To my wife, Coleen — thank you for giving me both the strength and the space to finish writing this book. You held our world steady while I disappeared into chapters, late nights, and one more draft. To my son, Kenzo — you are the reason I think so carefully about what kind of future we are building. Everything I do is shaped by the hope I carry for you.

To my mom and dad — you gave me everything I needed growing up, even when that meant trusting a son who kept choosing unconventional paths. Every risk I have taken in my life was possible because I knew I had a home to come back to. To my sister, Pam — thank you for believing in me, especially in the moments when the plan did not yet make sense to anyone else.

To my grandparents — Lolo Tom, Lola Dida, Lolo Jess, and Lola Josie — who took care of me and my sister while our parents were working overseas. You gave us a childhood full of love and stability, and I carry that with me in everything I build. To my uncles and aunts from the Jaboneta and Ortuoste families, who took turns looking after us as well — it truly took a village, and you were that village.

To my Tita Carl and my cousin Mishe — thank you for opening your home to me in New York during my Acumen fellowship. Having family on the other side of the world made a foreign city feel a little less far from home.

This book would not exist without the communities that welcomed the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation into their lives.

To the members of the board — Dr. Ofelia Sy, Mr. Manny So, and Dr. John Michael Dellariarte — your steady guidance has kept this mission alive and growing.

To the families of Layag-Layag in Zamboanga City, who gave us the name Bagong Pag-asa — New Hope — and showed us what hope looks like in practice: thank you for trusting us with something that mattered.

To every community leader (our HOPE Paddlers) across the Philippines and overseas who has partnered with Yellow Boat — your names would fill another book entirely. A complete list is below, and every one of you deserves to see your name there.

And to all the public school teachers who work alongside Yellow Boat in communities across the Philippines — you are the ones who turn boats into futures.

And to every donor who has given over the years, whether once or many times — you are part of this story, and this book is partly yours.

To Judy Vorfeld, who wrote the copy for our initial websites and other digital platforms — your words gave the Yellow Boat movement its first voice online, and they helped the world understand what we were trying to do before we fully understood it ourselves.

To Joel Ballesteros, for purchasing and maintaining our website in those early days — that quiet, consistent act of service kept the story alive and accessible when it mattered most.

To Rick Passo, our key global connector — thank you for the introductions that carried the Yellow Boat story far beyond what we had imagined, including the invitation to TEDxMontpellier that put the movement on an international stage for the first time.

To Francis J. Kong — thank you for mentoring me and for encouraging me to share the story publicly. Your belief that the Yellow Boat story deserved a larger audience gave me the confidence to keep telling it, and this book is one of the places it has landed.

To Alex Lacson, whose book 12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country lit a fire in me long before I knew what I would do with it — thank you for writing the words that made me want to act.

To the Kabayanihan family — Robert So, Fred Mison, Boy Provido, Paul Chua, and the many others who showed me what citizen-led nation-building looks like in practice — you planted seeds I am still harvesting.

To Jacqueline Novogratz, the entire Acumen family, and my co-Global Fellows from the class of 2012–2013 — you changed the way I see the world. Being sent to Lahore, Pakistan, for nine months to help a local water social enterprise provide clean drinking water to low-income families was the education no classroom could have given me. You taught me that moral imagination is not a luxury — it is the starting point.

To Grace Clapham-Gadbois and Avani Parekh, who guided us through the Facebook Community Leadership Program — thank you for believing that community builders deserved a seat at the table. And to my fellow community leaders in the program — your work across the world reminded me that the Yellow Boat story was part of something much larger.

To Br. Dennis Magbanua FSC, former president of De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde, and Robin Serrano, former Vice President — thank you for trusting me to help build the Hub of Innovation for Inclusion (HIFI). We proved that innovation and inclusion are not opposites.

To Abi Mapua-Cabanilla, Rex Lor, LA Aguilar, Nollie Araral, and the rest of the Benilde team who built HIFI — it was one of the most meaningful chapters of my career.

To Br. Dante Amisola FSC, who brought me on as Managing Director of NEXUS Innovation Labs at De La Salle Lipa — and to the entire DLSL family — thank you for giving me the room to experiment, build, and learn in real time.

And to every aspiring entrepreneur, social innovator, and dreamer who picks up this book — this was written for you. May it give you the courage to push your own boat out.

To every volunteer, donor, partner, supporter, and friend who has walked alongside the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation over the years — whether you gave once or have given again and again, whether you were in the room at the beginning or joined us somewhere along the way — this movement exists because of you. We have never taken your generosity for granted, and we never will.

To everyone who believed in the Hub of Innovation for Inclusion (HIFI) at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde and the NEXUS Innovation Labs at De La Salle Lipa — the students, faculty, mentors, industry partners, and institutional supporters who showed up for the work of building more inclusive and innovative communities. You proved that a school can be a laboratory for something bigger than itself.

And to everyone who has supported, encouraged, challenged, and collaborated with me personally across these many years of building things — the conversations over coffee, the messages of encouragement in difficult seasons, the introductions that opened unexpected doors, the honest feedback that made the work better. You may not see your name on this page yet, but I carry your contribution with me.

This is not the end of the list. It is just where the page ends for now.