Written by: Ate Nikki Pasion, Admin Officer
The most precious gift you can give, is the gift of your time and attention.
It was a rainy afternoon of May the 30th when we arrived at Philippine Children’s Medical Centre to celebrate Ate Joana’s 18th Birthday.
Mostly teenagers would prepare an extravagant 18th Birthday Celebration, especially here in the Philippines. Parents would save ahead of time, look for a nice, costly venue and catering services for this meaningful event for their daughters,but with Ate Joana, she chose to share her special day with the kids from Philippine Children’s Medical Centre where we gathered 30 Cancer Patients. It was also a school day that day and we were thankful that most of her classmates made time for it to celebrate with her despite of their hectic schedule and erratic weather.
While U! Happy core was waiting for the all the volunteers to arrive, we started breaking the ice by singing and jamming along with the kids at the event’s hall. They really seem to love singing and some were also dancing.
As everyone arrived, we introduced the volunteers to the kids. They shared their names, ages and what courses are they taking this coming school year then grouped them with the kids. Each row has one Ate and Kuya.
We started the program with a guessing game. Ate Divine, our Balloon Twister created 15 objects made by balloons and the kids should guess what it is. We made sure each and every group wins a prize.
Next is Art Attack time, everytime i handle arts and crafts workshop, especially kids from the hospitals and halfway houses, i make sure that our crafts would be something educational. Something that they can still play with even after the party. With this, we prepared a colouring page that we have glued on the popsicle sticks. After they have coloured the picture, our core team cut the picture to create a popsicle puzzle for them to arrange.
While the kids were waiting for their Puzzles,Ate Divine performed Balloon twisting where everyone gets a Twisted Balloon.
Lastly, after an hour worth of activities, the group was treated to lunch, care of our birthday celebrant. We shared meal and sing a happy birthday song to Ate Joana. Before we end the day, everyone gathered for a nice group photo. Also the best time to give hugs to our Ates and Kuyas before they leave.
Thank U! Ate Joana for partnering with us and for celebrating a meaningful event with the kids.
Happy 18th Birthday! 🙂
