Deeper than skin-deep: A family’s passion for helping that goes beyond the pursuit of profit

By Crisanta Sampang

Men and women for others — Ateneo De Manila

My first impression of Roy & Gigi Ricarse fulfills my mental image of your ideal migrant yuppie couple: goal-oriented, well-educated, young, attractive, and raising two school-aged sons – Lance and Kyle, and living in the suburbs. This comparison to yuppies ends, however, after having worked with the couple for at least two years on various non-profit projects in the organization we were involved with.

From the time Roy Ricarse joined the Board of the Multicultural Helping House Society, he has been all over the place, doing outreach with live-in caregivers and temporary foreign workers, assisting at fundraising events and helping out with membership drives. Not long after, his wife Gigi joined him as the volunteer outreach facilitator for the MHHS Tri-City and Eastern BC group. Gigi Ricarse’s job is to reach out and provide a gathering opportunity for the migrant workers in the tri-city areas: Maple Ridge, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody, areas too far from Vancouver for these men and women to make weekend trips to join city activities.

Together, Roy and Gigi formed a core group based in Port Coquitlam, and planned regular meetings and workshops tailored to inform their members about various changes in the immigration rules and to inspire them to learn new skills for future career changes. They organize picnics and encourage the group to attend important MHHS events in Vancouver.

Meanwhile, they’re performing their day jobs just as dedicatedly and passionately. Roy is a financial advisor with AJ Insurance Services. He deals with investments, medical insurance, and life, term and critical illness insurance services. Gigi worked at Seon, a mobile service provider, first as an admin assistant then moved on to customer service and was later  promoted to Process Analyst then eventually Data Integrity Administrator.  She took the course and became a licensed insurance advisor in 2010.  In March of 2013, Gigi quit her job at Seon to devote more time to the family and help Roy with his work at the AJ Insurance Services.

“How do you reconcile selling insurance and financial services with trying to help people?” I asked Gigi Ricarse, because it was very important to me to establish the fact that they’re not crossing any ethical boundaries in performing their jobs and volunteer work simultaneously.

“In our line of work, we help people achieve their dreams. We encourage them to strive for financial security. Just think of temporary foreign workers and live-in caregivers, they are away from their families for long periods of time. If they lost their jobs or get seriously sick here, there won’t be anyone to help them except themselves. The community can only do so much for them. I have been involved in raising funds in such cases. With some savings and the right kind of insurance, they will be able to rest and get better without financial problems and go back to work,” Gigi says.

“When we first came to Vancouver, I worked at various odd jobs because I had to. I did retail. I worked as warehouseman for Winners and I sold First Aid products. I know how it feels to start from scratch. I experienced and understood what every new immigrant or temporary foreign worker goes through,” says Roy.

A big change from a well-off life in the Philippines, where they employed three nannies, had a nice house, two family cars and great careers. Roy worked as a Sales Manager for a big distribution company while Gigi was a branch manager at Philippine Long Distance Tel. Co. (PLDT Co.). But change was something they wanted, because raising their kids and retiring in a good place like Canada was worth all the sacrifice.

It was enlightening to find out that both Roy and Gigi Ricarse were born to devoted Catholic families, educated in Catholic schools and raised in an atmosphere of community service. Both graduates of Ateneo University, they met and fell in love in their early twenties, at — guess where — a singles for Christ meeting called Lingkod ng Panginoon. After they got married, they moved on to become members of Holy Trinity Community, another group under the umbrella of Ligaya ng Panginoon.

In the Philippines, the couple had been actively involved in community outreach with the underprivileged, and pastoring families as part of their role as leaders. Their goal is to help families have a personal relationship with God through community life.

In Port Coquitlam, they are active unit leaders of Couples for Christ, and passionately involved in pastoring families as well. Roy and Gigi Ricarse are also actively involved in raising funds for ANCOP (Answering the Cry of the Poor), an outreach organization under Couples for Christ that raises money to build homes for the poor and the homeless in the Philippines, and sending underprivileged children to school. All these, aside from their work with the live-in caregivers, temporary foreign workers and new immigrants.

Having known all these, when I needed to buy insurance coverage, I knew who to call — Roy and Gigi. Thank God for that.