Written by Kuya Harvard
It was only our second own funded U! Happy Event of the year. We used to do more of that in the early years. We now shifted to more of sponsor’s create your own events. This is indeed a good sign as we embraced more individuals and companies funding entire events directly. This program enabled us to have 10-17 events every month this 2014!
Halloween in the Philippines is getting bigger every year. So we had our own because we wanted to celebrate it with kids in the hospital. A number of volunteers came with full costumes. One of them, Kuya Dennis won best and was awarded Php 1,000 gift certificate at Nomama Capitol Commons. He came as a matador!
As volunteers start trickling in and register, the young patients were waiting to be called in the pediatric wards of Quirino Memorial Medical Center (QMMC). We had a good turnout of 39 volunteers! That was awesome considering it was a Sunday morning. As volunteers got settled, we start putting IDs to the kids. They came with their parents or guardians with most tagging along their dextrose.
We started with a big greeting of good morning. Kuya Harvard was with a big smile to set the happy tone. That was important for us knowing that the kids were struggling physically and not feeling well. We had everyone grouped and got them to share information about each other.
Then we had the Halloween game. Here each group had 10 pieces of paper and 6 pairs of scissors. They had to cut certain pieces of Halloween related items. The first group to raise six of those wins a point. So we asked for easy ones like a coffin and a ghost. We also had difficult ones like a skeleton, zombie and a witch.
The main activity, mask making was next. Ate Lynette Torres shared how to make your own customize one using simple materials. All they needed was a paper plate, Japanese paper, glue and scissors. Here we were a witness of creativity. All the masks created were so different from one another. The colors, shapes and even the add ons were mark of each one’s ingenuity.
Poses with masks came next. Happiness! We gave out food and story books after to each kid.
We ended a beautiful and memorable morning being reminded of reaching out and treating the children. This is why we called it Out Treat. It was not just about gifts, it was more of being present and having the heart to volunteer.
