Saturday Service Shenanigans

En Qi Saw

Every school year, students in Dalat International School are required to complete ten hours of service hours within the course of twelve months in order to graduate. More often than not, high schoolers tend to view this obligation as a burden and a chore. Throughout my high school years, however, service projects have always been fun, exciting days where I get to serve the community and spend quality time with my friends simultaneously.

This Saturday, 19 November, students who signed up for a service project in a local school, S.K.T.T, gathered on campus at eight o’clock in the morning. After loading the truck with props and materials needed for later, we (twenty-four Dalat students in total) made our way to the local school with a hint of anticipation.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted with the happy faces of the local students who were aged between seven and eleven years old. As much as they were excited to see us, they were very polite and were very well-mannered. They sat down patiently and quietly, waiting for us to unload the truck and to set up a ‘mini carnival’ for them. We prepared eight stations of games for the locals, and every three high schoolers were assigned to a station.

As we were busy preparing for the carnival, Mrs. Pagee and Ms. Chan distributed a plastic bag to each local student. The bags were to be used to keep collected coupons from the game stations. The coupons could then be exchanged for different prizes at the prize station, managed and taken care of by Zachary Kok (11) and David Chinn (11).

Finally, the carnival started, and the local students went from station to station, trying out different games. One of the most popular games that morning was the ‘sponge toss’ station, where each player had three attempts to throw a sponge to a high schooler who sat behind a cut-opened board for his face to fit in. Xu An Lim (10) was the first “victim” of this game, followed by Jerald Lim (12) and Woo Young Chung (12).

The carnival ended around ten o’clock in the morning. The local students ran to the prize station, excited to see what they could make use of their coupons with. As the students were occupied with counting their coupons, Felicia Teoh Chyi (12), Ms. Chan, and I set up drinks and snacks. We ended the day with some refreshments for the exhausted children.

After the event, Ning Kang Chia (12), Woo Young Chung, Jerald Lim (12), Darian Yeap (12), Keito Watanabe (12), Felicia Teoh, Amanda Low (10), and I made our way to McDonald’s to satisfy our hunger. Gathered around a long table, we were all thankful it was a meaningful and productive morning. As Low said before she chowed down her scrumptious meal, “It was refreshing to be able to go out and have fun with kids instead of staying home.”