Final Chapter: Caring and Sharing in the Spirit of National Day

21st August marked the day of our SSDB project closure. We received wonderful support from our parents during our National Day donation drive that we had plenty to donate to the old folks at NTUC Health Nursing Home (Jurong West). We lovingly sorted and packed the items into 4 big boxes!

On top of it, we packed special goodie bags for the 20 residents that we were privileged to interact with. These goodie bags had crackers, beverages, even toys such as five stones and olden days card games like Snap and Donkey. We sure hoped the residents love them!

When we arrived, we had a bit of time to set up the room, put up our massive stage and got the children in position. Can you feel the excitement in the air?

Soon it was time for us to welcome the residents. As they began to stream in, some of our teachers volunteered to push the wheelchairs while the children lined up on both sides and greeted the grandmas and grandpas enthusiastically.

Just look at the faces of the old folks lighting up upon seeing the children!

After all the residents settled down in the multipurpose room, it was time for our programme to start. We began with a few words from Christine, the IC from the nursing home itself to explain to the old folks about the kids before they passed over the mic to our Centre Head, Mrs. Gouri to do an introduction.

Short introduction done, time to put up “Our Singapore Story” Shadow Puppet Show from our expert puppeteers!

The grandmas and grandpas were very amazed from the moment the shadows appeared on our white screen cloth. They were going “ooh” and “ahh” in awe with the performance. Our children managed to put up a successful final performance and they deserved a massive round of applause!

Following the puppet show, each child was paired up with a resident and they had to work together to create a star wand craft, like the stars from our national flag.

Everyone worked together and helped each other to colour, cut, paste. Nobody was left behind in this craft activity. All the hands got busy! Look at how proud they were of their creations!

With the star wand crafts completed, they had a little National Day songs sing along session with the children leading the singing and the residents waving their wands in the air.

Everyone’s spirits up high from all the singing, we ended off our visit with a nice tea time together. Each child took one goodie bag and presented them to the elderly they paired with earlier during the craft work. Teachers also helped to serve the hot drinks such as coffee and milo. They had a good time chatting with our little ones.

To end off, our CH presented the 4 boxes worth of goodies to Christine on behalf of the residents.

It was time for us to say goodbye to our dear residents, so our children helped to push the wheelchairs to the lift lobby as their final act of kindness for them this visit.

Our time spent was short but very precious. It touched everyone’s heart, both children and teachers. In our closing discussion, our children mentioned how they felt happy for being able to help the elderly, how they enjoyed chatting with them. It warmed our hearts as teachers to be able to hear the kind of experiences and learning that children took away from this meaningful visit. Hopefully, our little ambassadors will spread the message of kindness and care towards our elderly far and wide!

As this project came to a close, we all realize just no matter how small we are, we can achieve just about anything as long as we dare to dream big, just like how our children worked hard to build their theatre and props out of recycled materials, as well as touching the lives of the elderlies.

MK@Westwood signing off with a message,

Start Small, Dream Big everyone!