Two mothers from Blue Ridge B, Quezon City, were adjudged winners in the recently concluded Quezon City Gawad Ulirang Ina Awards for 2014.

The annual search was conducted by Alay Kay Ina ng Lungsod Quezon Foundation, Inc., headed by its president Charlene Bautista Tejedor.

The award is given in recognition and appreciation of all the contributions and sacrifices of the mothers, not only for their families but also for the community, which are vital in nation-building.

Blue Ridge B Kagawad Marilen Medina Ruiz, a retired HSBC banker who raised three accomplished children, was proclaimed 2014 Gawad Ulirang Ina awardee for Quezon City.  Through Ruiz’s efforts, Blue Ridge B was adjudged the grand winner in 2012 and 2013 (Category D) in the QC Best Barangay Solid Waste Management Practice. She was also an active president of the Blue Ridge B Homeowners Association.   Ruiz has received many more awards from various groups.

Letty Nietes-Buhay, the 2014 Gawad Ulirang Ina awardee for the 3rd District of Quezon City, is a mother of five successful professionals. A former speech professor at the University of Santo Tomas, she trained prize-winning orators in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, where she taught for 28 years. As a speech therapist who finished her MS in Speech Therapy at the University of Illinois under a Fulbright Travel Grant, she founded the first oral school for hearing-impaired children in the Philippines in 1987, the Maria Lena Buhay Memorial Foundation, Inc. in memory of a daughter who died in 1986.

She is “Teacher-Mom” to hundreds of hearing-impaired children whom she taught how to talk, and whose lives she has touched deeply.

Last March, UST gave her the 2014 Total Award (The Outstanding Thomasian Alumni award) in Education. She was active in the Blue Ridge B Homeowners Association and was secretary of the Blue Ridge B Barangay Council.