“The Iris Orchard:” How Celine Gabriel Lim Celebrates Her Daughter’s Birthday
We’ve heard of birthday parties and out-of-country trips, but mompreneur Celine Gabriel Lim celebrates her daughter, Iris‘s, birthday while giving back to nature.
“Leave the world better than we lived in it”—many often remind us that we’re just “borrowing” from nature. While we’ve repaid nature the favor in small ways, mompreneur Celine Gabriel Lim finds a way to celebrate her daughter’s birthdays and repay nature through a friendly local fruit: rambutan. As a gift to both Mother Nature and her daughter, she and her husband planted over 147 rambutan trees on their family farm, with 145 of them becoming fruitful. The blooming orchard would even share her daughter’s name — “The Iris Orchard.”
Although the family was in ‘no rush’ to harvest the fruit, five years soon passed, just as the farmhands said it would take for the orchard to bear fruit. It did feel like a long time back then, Celine reflects in an old post. “Well, what do you know? Five years zipped by in the blink of an eye, and here we are back at the farm again — after a pandemic and three years living in Vancouver.”
The Iris Orchard: A “Project From The Heart”
Just like how the orchard grew, so did Iris’ involvement. As the “heart of the orchard,” Celine’s daughter would join her parents for the first harvest and their brainstorming uses for the fruit. After bouncing ideas from each other, they would turn the rambutan into jam especially since Celine herself loves eating jam. After several taste tests and Iris’ honest and “very seven-year-old” feedback about every artwork and design, the first batch of jams would reach family and friends. However, their approach to creating the jam did not focus on profit. Rather, it focused on what Celine would call ” serving a greater purpose.”
“The money we earn matters only because it allows us to support our farmers and give back,” Celine explains. “But of course, we want to expand especially with another harvest coming next year. It’s why I partnered with The Giving Hope Foundation. A childhood friend of mine is a director there, and when she shared their advocacy with me, I knew they were the right partner.”
With her Manila team managing the partnership with the foundation, Celine Gabriel Lim continues to find more ways to ensure The Iris Orchard remains “meaningful,” especially to Iris and their family as they stay in Vancouver. Partnering with the foundation is just the start, she explains. “I hope to find more ways to give back, involve more farmers who help us in a more impactful way, and use this project to spread a little more joy. More than anything, I’d love for it to be something Iris feels truly connected to, if ever she wants to take a bigger role.”
Lessons Learned From The Birthday Trees
If there’s any lesson Celine Gabriel Lim’s The Iris Orchard teaches, it’s that kids and trees thrive on meaningful gestures and the awareness that there’s a higher calling. Though Celine knows it’ll still take time for her seven-year-old daughter to understand the orchard’s role in the grand scheme of things, she instead chooses to enjoy the journey that her choice to grow her daughter’s “birthday trees” set her on.
“As for the lessons – I’m not overthinking it. There are undoubtedly great lessons to be learned, and those will come naturally. What matters most to me is that she enjoys this journey with us: the joy of creating, experiencing nature’s bounty, and knowing that this orchard, this jam are simply expressions of how much we love her,” she concludes.
More about interesting ways to celebrate birthdays?
Our Family’s ABCs: Turning Birthdays into World Explorations
Ruffa Gutierrez Kicks Off Birthday Celebration With Kids Organization
Smokey Manaloto And His Son Throw A Generous 1st Birthday!
