847 Ate Victoria’s Story Telling Workshop with Gentle Hands

Written by Treasurer, Ate Rica Leyritana
Last November 13, I got the chance to lead and host an event again and this time it is in the Gentle Hands Orphanage. While I’ve been leading and hosting for quite sometime, I still get nervous as I still do not know what to expect. Plus, it was my first time to visit this place. Not known to many, we at U! Happy Events encounter also problems during events. It ranges from our core members getting lost, food delivery not arriving on time, change in plans due to miscommunication, weather and even kids misbehaving. The list goes on but thankfully and so far, all events have come to past. Today, our microphone (even our back -up mic) wasn’t working but we we’re glad that our performers have big voices and the group is relatively small.
I and the rest of U! Core team with the sponsors arrived extra early so we took the opportunity to get to know each other better. Apparently, our sponsors were a family and they have been meaning to organize a volunteer event for the longest time. Through the initiative of their youngest member, Thea, they finally contacted us to create an event for them.
When the kids arrived, we proceeded to group everyone and just the same, we gave them time to familiarize one another. As usual we gave them guide questions for a smoother getting to know activity. Once the time was up, we asked them to share some of the answers of their group mates and to our delight, everyone listened to each other.
Now that we got everyone warmed up, we then asked everyone to play “Pass the Charades.” In this game, we had teams pass the message to the next member by acting it out. The last person has to guess correctly to win. Quite honestly, this is my favorite among all our many games. It’s easy, fun, it fosters team work and at the end of the game, no one is shy anymore!
After a competitive stint, we got everyone to rest for a while for our first entertainment- magic show. Kuya Rico wowed the crowd! To further captivate the experience, he asked one of the kids to do magic with him. It was a brief, funny moment. I really felt the kids and even our sponsors were delighted and almost in disbelief.
Our next artist was mainstay, Kuya Rich Rodriguez, one of the best story tellers in the country. Just for everyone’s appreciation, storytelling is a performance act as well- the storyteller would read from a book and he would act out ALL of the characters in there. It was like watching a play. His story for that day was about a gecko (“tuko” in Filipino) who wanted to sing but unfortunately, he doesn’t really have a singing voice. Not only was the storytelling performance fun to watch, but it also imparted a very important lesson for the kids. It is to accept their imperfections and to focus on their strengths.
Once done with eating, we then took the group picture and then our sponsors, Thea and Tita Vicky (Thea’s mom) said a few words to the kids. After which, the kids gave their hugs, said their thank yous and waved their goodbyes. Another event may have ended but the memories for sure last forever.

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