Chairperson of the Board
A strong believer in the adage that there is no monopoly in doing good, Celia has chosen to continue what has been to her a truly rewarding endeavor. After declaring retirement from both her professional and charitable activities at the end of December 2017, that go back at least four decades, she determined, after a few months of quiet reflection, that she was not ready to leave behind a very long journey of giving and sharing, with those with less in life. A veteran in many charitable implementations that span more than twenty years, she was Scholarship Chair, spearheaded a Books Program that supplemented mandated books and materials to impoverished schools, and served as Chairman of the Board to a charitable organization that reached tens of thousands of people needing help. She also established the Celia P. Donahue Scholarship Fund and personally funded the college education of more than a dozen deserving students from her country of birth, the Philippines. In January 2020, she founded Children’s Hope Charities, with a mission to pursue programs benefiting education, mental health, anti-violence against children, and hunger alleviation.
Celia is an entrepreneur by profession who owned and managed consulting businesses that ran the gamut from travel and events planning, to government procurement, engineering services in oil and gas, to sourcing ferro alloys in steel manufacturing and finding supply of raw materials for chemical product solutions. A Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service graduate from the University of the Philippines (UP), she was the founding Vice President and then President of the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. She was the Convenor and first Executive Vice President of the Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce in the United States. An active community leader, she has served as board member, trustee, officer, or event chair in other organizations, to name a few, like US Filipinos for Good Governance, UP Alumni Association, and the Philippine American Foundation for Charities (PAFC). She served for many years as a Director for the Tourism Advisory Council of the Philippines North America Division covering Washington, D.C. and the states of Maryland and Virginia.
Notwithstanding her professional life and her many charitable endeavors, the light of her life will always be her three sons and their families, that now count five handsome smart grandsons.
Children's Hope Charities 