211 Merck Celebrates with Virlanie Foundation

Written by Kuya Harvard

One of Kuya Harvard’s friends approached him for a Create Your Own Event. Ate Guiden works for a pharmaceutical firm, Merck. It was indeed a blessing that they chose us to organize this event.Their company agreed to do an outreach this year instead of the usual outing.

For Merck to encourage more participants to volunteer, Kuya Harvard was invited to share a talk on volunteerism. He emphasized that volunteering has a long list of benefits to us. In fact, more to us than to the kids and their families.

June 8 came and we got more sign ups last minute. Around 50 employees went with some bringing companions and their kids. We got to pair all 60 kids from Virlanie that day. Most attendees were first time volunteers. So we made sure it was fun through the 3 games we prepared.

The Virlanie Foundation, Inc. is the largest private non-sectarian child caring institution in Metro Manila, Philippines. The foundation serves children found living in the streets as well as those referred by other institutions. Virlanie works to prevent the future physical and psychological abuse of children. It envisions empowered children see a brighter future for themselves. It cares for more than four hundred (400+) children in its twelve (12) homes and eight hundred (800) children through its outreach programs.

Here are the 3 games. First we did Bato Bato Pick. It was designed as a get to know you game. Everyone was given 10 stickers. Volunteers can only fight it out with kids and vice versa. Before you play Bato Bato Pick you had to ask each other a few profile questions. If you win, you get the sticker from the other person. Most stickers in 5 minutes wins.

Next one was Fish Be With You. We separated them into 4 teams of around 15 pairs each. Each pair sucks the hearts in paper form using a straw and transfers it as fast as they can to the other end. The last game was designed by the teens from Virlanie. We call it replacements. Groups tries to copy the photo shown to one “looker”. The “runner” then describes it to the rest of the team, the “builders”. The builders recreating the photo were the kids while the volunteers assisted them.

We actually have a list of 53 games so far. It is available to you if you Create Your Own Event with us. All of our games are designed to involve everyone and create fruitful interactions with the kids and the volunteers.

The day ended with the kids dancing the new Psy sensation “Gentleman” and we dancing Happy, our theme song with everyone else. We showed them the dance moves and everyone followed with us. Many of their volunteers stayed and hang out with the kids even after the program. I guess that was a great sign that they truly enjoyed the outreach. Thank you once again to Merck. We hope you do this event with us annually. 🙂

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