Thursday, June 5, 2008

Single Parents having a great time





Despite the stormy weather which made it tough for some Single Mums to attend, Jumble Station's first Mother’s Day party for Single Parents got off to a rousing start with several of the mothers friskily ‘kicking off their heels’ to participate in an impromptu ‘Hokey Pokey’ dance designed to get them loosened up for the special event.

It was swiftly followed by a number of games aimed at testing their dexterity with chopsticks in the case of picking up beans, their toothy snap and crunch ability with the sunflower seeds, muscle power with newspaper toss in the case of the Single Fathers and wind power where it came to blowing up a balloon till it burst.

The Single Parents were given a short speech by Jumble Station single parents co-ordinator Lim Lian See who also announced the fact that JS has officially assumed full responsibility for the care of all those within the Shelter Home’s Single Mothers Network and combined with the newer ones on JS’ database, these will now come under the proposed umbrella of “Parents without Partners’. More on this later.

This was followed by a brief power point presentation on what Jumble Station was all about by JS co-founder Mary Anne. This was very quickly followed by a lively presentation of the Malay version of line dancing also known as ‘pocho pocho’ by three dancers from the Angsana Residents Committee dance troupe led by single father Aiman.

The highlight of the event was the lucky draw where every one of the Single Parents won a lucky draw prize regardless of whether the item was a small silver bracelet or a large electronic biggie item such as a DVD, an oven etc. Topping off the evening’s revelry was the fantastic food spread that was laid out for them with enough for some of the ‘poorer’ Single parents to ‘take away’ for their dinner or perhaps lunch for their kids the next day.

And to make the day even more memorable, every single Parent was given a goodie bag from courier company GDex with believe it or not, one electric item – an electric steam iron or a toaster or a hairdryer along with a photoframe and other great stuff – to take away. Even the little children were not forgotten, they too received a goodie bag from DGex which saw them all leaving with huge smiles on their faces.

To all the sponsors and volunteers out there who made this event so special, memorable and enjoyable, our sincere thanks and heartfelt appreciation for without your input, this would not have been as fabulous. So once again, a very big THANK YOU!