MANOA — A small mountain of cast-off stuffed animals filled a temporary stage at Saint Francis School yesterday, destined to be cuddled in the arms of sick boys and girls in a Philippines hospital.

It was part of the school's Lent program, where students give up something to give to others. The project this year came from a graduate who asked the school to help her reach out to children in a poor hospital in the Philippines.

Sheena Joy Malbog, a 2004 Saint Francis graduate who goes back and forth to the Philippines, went on a tour of the Philippines Orthopedic Center as a guest of the Theatre Phileo group from the Asia Pacific College in Manila. While on that tour, Malbog saw children and teens from toddlers to 18 years old crammed three to a room in rooms smaller than most bedrooms. Terminally ill cancer patients who had limbs amputated were in old metal hospital beds that used hand cranks, and the hospital was without technological devices, Malbog said.

She vowed to help them in some way, Malbog said.

"The stories appealed to our students," said Sister Joan Of Arc Souza, principal of Saint Francis School. "The students' hearts went out to these children."

Malbog, who has created a scholarship foundation for elementary children in her parents' hometown of Urdanenta, is an actress in the Philippines. When she went there recently, she couldn't believe what she saw.

"This is the poorest of the poorest hospitals," Malbog said. "Yet, the children I met, who all had cancer and had a leg amputated, were still happy and smiley."

In the six weeks of Lent, Saint Francis School's 385 students gathered 561 stuffed animals that will be sent out to these children at the orthopedic center. Malbog has arranged for a company to ship the toys to the town and she will be there to help pass out the animals. It will take two to three months for them to get to the center in Quezon, Philippines.

Aja Gample, a 16-year-old Saint Francis junior, said it was easy to give, but there was a tiny part of her that thought about keeping some of what she gave.

"I gave some of the stuffed animals that I had grown out of — things that had been on the shelf in my room, stuffed in the closet and smashed on the side of my bed," Gample said. "But this one, a Neopet, well, it was a bit harder. It was given to me by a friend in second grade."

In the past the school has launched a toiletry drive for the Institute for Human Services and a canned food drive.

"I felt really good about giving these up for the cause," said Monica Harvey, an 18-year-old Saint Francis senior. "It's better to give them away for a good cause than keep them in my room."