Written by Vice President for Internal, Ate Charmain Tan
We were back at Virlanie Tanglaw Home once again for this Satruday afternoon as we celebrated the joint birthday of Ate Giah, who turned 10, and Kuya Achim, who turned 11 last January. Ate Gretchen, Ate Giah’s mother read about U! Happy Events in one of the smart parenting articles and she was interested in what U! Happy Events does. She wanted to celebrate the birthday of her daughter by sharing the blessing with the children of Virlanie. They travelled all the way from Las Pinas to spend their afternoon here at the Tanglaw Home. Virlanie provides residential programs and support services for children. They have several homes in the Makati area where the kids are clustered by age. As soon as a child is entered in one of the Virlanie homes, the child will be provided with programs that will empower him to live life to the fullest until he moves out of Virlanie through family reunification, adoption, foster care, or independent living. Ate Grace of Virlanie talked to the volunteers about what Virlanie does for the children.
As we started the day we asked the volunteers to introduce themselves to the children by talking about their favorite food and hobbies. We then grouped the children with the ates and kuyas and in turn the volunteers got to know the children in their groups better. We also asked them to come up with a group name. The groups were Team Kid Ninja led by Kuya Achim and his mom Ate Beng, Team Blue Bird led by Ate Gretchen, and Team Tree Green led by the birthday celebrant Ate Giah.
We then played our first game the Math Trivia. Kuya Aaron gave out mathematical equations and once the team figured out the answer, they had to link the correct number of paper clips together. The first team that linked the correct number of clips first won the game. Kuya Aaron started out with easy questions to get everyone involved. He then gave harder questions which the volunteers were able to answer correctly. He then gave the math problems in the form of stories. It was a challenge for the teams since they had to listen to the story properly and remember all the numbers that were mentioned. In the end it was Team Blue Bird that won the game.
Our second game was Fish Be With You. Each group was given a bilao and paper cut sea creatures. The objective of the game was for the team members to fan the sea creatures into the bilao within the allotted time. The team that fanned the most number of sea creatures would get a point. The challenge was to make sure the kids played by the rules. They weren’t allowed to sweep the papers using the paper plates nor were they allowed to use their hands. After all the rounds it was again Team Blue Bird who won the game.
After the exciting games we had our art workshop by Teacher Blanca. In line with the upcoming valentine’s day, she taught the kids how to do raining hearts. She first taught them to cut the illustration boards into the shape of clouds. It was a bit hard to cut them since the boards were hard. Some of the ates and kuyas assisted the kids in cutting. It was also nice to see that some of the kids really wanted to do it themselves. Even if it was a challenge, they really tried finishing it on their own. Ate Blanca then instructed them to insert the yarn on the holes on the top part of the clouds that will serve as the hanging. She then asked them to glue crumpled white crepe paper onto the cloud-shaped illustration board that created fluffy clouds. She then taught the kids to put strands of yarn that dropped from the clouds. The kids then cut heart shaped papers from the red cartolina. Now that they have lots of hearts, they glued them onto the yarn that dropped from the clouds. The artwork turned out really nice as they looked like drops of hearts falling down from the sky. The kids were so excited that some of then rushed to their rooms to hang their artwork. We had to tell them to come back as they would be able to hang them later.
After the activities the children got to enjoy their hearty snacks with the kids. They then sang a Happy Birthday song for Ate Giah and Kuya Achim who blew out all of their candles. The family then gave out adorable bed sheets for all the kids. The girls got pink princess and Hello Kitty bedsheets while the boys got minions and blue colored bed sheets. Everyone held their bedsheets as they hugged and thanked the volunteers for spending their afternoon with them.
