For the past 12 years, Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom. Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump. Peñaflorida knows firsthand the adversity faced by these children. Born into a poor family, he lived in a shanty near the city dump site. But he says he refused to allow his circumstances to define his future.
What is now known as Doña Leonila (Mini-Forest) Park overlooking the Sampaloc Lake is actually a portion of the site for the City Hall Complex purchased in 1937 by the Municipal Government of San Pablo headed by President Inocencio Barleta, which was partly developed after the termination of World War II under the administration of appointed City Mayor, Dr. Fernando A. Bautista. During the incumbency of elected Mayor Lauro D. Dizon Sr., with the help of the Rotary Club of San Pablo, and under the supervision of Dr. Juan B. Hernandez, then club secretary of the local Rotary Club and Chairman of the City Beautification Committee, constructed some park structures at the park, with the fountain featuring the country lass with agriculture harvest as centerpiece. Probably, Hernandez and then City Engineer Perfecto Reyes were inspired by the figures affixed on the façade of the City Hall Building which symbolizes progress. Sometimes on April of 1961 when then President Carlos Garcia made a
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