Written by: Ate Suszie, U! Happy Core Team Member
It was a bright sunny day at Alabang, which makes it perfect for an event with the kids. Ate Ann decided to spend her birthday and weekend with those who doesn’t have much but are very welcoming and sweet. The beneficiaries are 74 kids of Haven for Children. The children are mostly street children or abandoned children who doesn’t have any families to go home, so they stay at Haven For Children while they get to be adopted into a family. The children are being supported by the foundation through having social workers and immediate doctors on side as well as having different programs in order to develop their potentials.
We started the event by introducing the sponsor Ate Ann and her family to the children and grouping them into 4 so that the Sponsors can get to know the children and vice versa. Each group contained 12-13 children and 1 of the sponsors per group. We asked the 4 groups to name their group and make their own group cheers. The kids and sponsors had fun and each group had quite ingenious group names. For the first group their name was “Team Lover Boy Santa”. The most positive group called themselves “Team Blessed”. The third group, named themselves after the famous superhero “team Green Lantern” and the last group named themselves the ever positive “Team Faith”.
The next activity we played was a game called “Bring Me Art”. The mechanics of the game is that the host will say a shape, for example a star, and the first group to complete the task wins a point. The first round of the category was to create a star, which was won by Team Lover Boy santa. The last round was to create a Christmas Tree, which was won by Team Lover Boy santa, making them the overall winner of the Game.
After the Game, everyone was asked to sit down, as Kuya Performed a balloon Twisting show and showed the kids how to create balloon shapes to the kids. During the show he would ask the kids what kind of shape he’s creating and whoever guesses it right gets the balloon. The kids we’re so amazed by the balloons that he gave away. While the balloon twisting show was ongoing the other kids were also getting their face painted as their favourite anime character.
After the Balloon twisting show, they got to see the bubble show. Kuya Allan performed different bubble tricks in front of the kids and sponsor. He got to make small and really big balloons. He even asked 2 of the kids to participate and stand in the middle of the small pool, so that he can envelop them with massive bubbles. Once the Bubble show for the magic show ended, Food was distributed to the groups. They got carbonara and a sandwich; on top of that there were 3 food stalls, which included popcorns, fairy floss and national favourite dessert, Sorbetes.
Before the event ended, the sponsors gave each kid gifts, and then the kids alongside the sponsors had their photos taken. After they had their photo taken, the kids and the core team sang Happy Birthday to Ate Ann, She was touched by the us singing Happy Birthday she started tearing up. Right after that, the all the kids gave Ate Ann hugs and meaningful messages and thanking her, which ended this very fulfilling day.
