Written by Board Member, Ate Charmain Tan
This Sunday afternoon we visited Gentle Hands once again. It is one of our most frequented beneficiaries. Our first event with them was in 2014 and since then we’ve done 18 more events, the latest one was the Kids Olympics in August. It is a child and youth welfare agency that provides rehabilitation, medical, social, and educational needs of children at risk.
Ate Abby from Sykes Philippines created this event for her co-workers. They usually do outreach activities twice a year. They have given donations to beneficiaries like Project Pearls in the past. For this outreach event they wanted to spend their time with the children. They arrived early at Gentle Hands bringing their smiles and enthusiasm. It was a warm afternoon but despite that they were able to sustain their energy and encourage the children to participate in the afternoon’s activities.
We first grouped the volunteers and children into four and they got the chance to get to know one another by talking about their favorite food. Some even mentioned Toasted Tuyo! They children also talked about what they wanted to be when they grow up. Most of them wanted to be police officer, teacher, chef, pilot, and actor. Ate Rica and one of the children did an impromptu dialogue and everyone laughed so loud as Ate Rica had really good acting skills.
We then played the game Act a Video. The groups had to act out the scenario that we gave. Some of the funniest acts were from Ate Marga’s group. The scenario was “ants in the forest”. Ate Marga was the exterminator and the kids were crawling on the floor like ants. She kept on going as she was exterminating the “ants”. The kids had so fun crawling on the floor and pretending to be ants. Another scenario was a bonfire. Ate Trista’s group did a really funny portrayal of marshmallows being roasted on the fire. The four volunteers formed a circle while the kids lay on the floor and formed a circle. The kids represented the fire while the volunteers were the marshmallows. Ate Trista and her friends shook their hips as they were the “marshmallows being roasted on fire”. They thought of creative ways in acting out the different scenarios and in the end it was their creativity that made their group the winners of the game.
The second game was Pass the Dance. All the team members formed a straight line. The first person faced the front while the rest faced the other direction. Kuya Lex came up with a dance move while the people in front copied the move. The first person had to pass the move to the second person until it reached the last person. The last person had to do the move and it had to be the same as the one originally done by Kuya Lex. The group that got to two points won the game. It was hilarious as the kids tried to copy the move but it always ended up changing when it reached the last person. The volunteers at the last position did their best to try to copy the dance move as best as they could. The volunteers and kids were all laughing as they tried to figure out what the move could possibly be.
After the games we had the Bubble Show. Our Bubble Man started out with small bubbles. He then created small bubbles inside a larger bubble. In the end he came out with really huge bubbles. The kids were in awe as they tried to reach the bubbles and tried popping them. We then asked some volunteers and kids to go to the front and they got to be inside the bubble.
After the activity-filled afternoon it was time for the much needed rest and we had our afternoon snacks. The kids also got treats like jelly which they all wanted to start eating already. We gave out storybook to the winners of the games. The volunteers also gave out school supplies and toothpaste to each of the kids. At the end of the day the kids hugged and thanked the ates and kuyas for spending the day with them. The volunteers had a great time with the children as they, as well as we, look forward to more partnerships in the future.
