Love Fills the Air

WELCOME

On behalf of the Directors, we would like to welcome you to the June issue of your

Newsletter, M.E.F. The month of June is often dubbed as the month when love fills

the air. The love that radiates from our wonderful Volunteers, Sponsors and Donors

fills the whole of Hong Kong. When Marilou came up with the idea behind us, she

never realised that there was much love for less fortunate children who deserve the

best. Truly fills our hearts with love.

JOYOUS PARTIES IN MAY

Our first joyous party of the month was in the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society in

Kowloon City, the day before Mother’s Day. There were supposed to be 7

Celebrants but only 4 Celebrants came with their Guests. The downsized joyous

party was brilliantly led by our newest Team Leader, Nissa. She started by

introducing Kiryu without his costume who did some magic tricks, including making

an empty glass glow at the bottom by waving his hand over it. Nissa started her first

game, Musical Chairs. Whilst the game was going on Kiryu changed into his Batman

costume. Great joy when he made his grand entrance and everyone sang Happy

Birthday to the Celebrants standing in front of Batman. We sung Happy Birthday in

English and Cantonese and Neetu sang it in Hindi. Despite the number of

participants being lower than expected, Nissa still led a highly enjoyable joyous party

with traditional games like Dance Freeze and the Limbo Dance. She also introduced

a new game, the Cookie Face Game. The Participants were each given an Oreo

cookie to balance on their forehead and without using their hands manoeuvred the

cookie into their mouths. Surprisingly not many landed on the floor!! The Celebrants

then made a wish, blew out the candles and cut the beautiful Ube Cake created by

Lorie. No one had seen an Ube Cake let alone taste one but everyone found it

delicious. The nourishing meal was Halal pizza and shawarmas. Each Celebrant got

a gift that they loved and will treasure for the rest of their lives. As it was soon going

to be Nissa and our Volunteer, Karen’s birthday they also got a birthday gift each.

Karen loves her stuffed animal cushion and Nissa really liked the toy dog that when

you pressed its paw rolled around laughing. Although a small joyous party it was big

on enjoyment and fun thanks to a yummy cake, a great Team Leader and a

wonderfully talented team of Volunteers. The Mothers got an extra surprise when

Kiryu presented each mother a red rose.

Our next joyous party was momentous for many reasons. The joyous party was led

by Ms. Eva Lo who is the model of efficiency. She had to be at her most efficient as

was responsible for delivering birthday happiness to 16 Celebrants and 35 Guests,

our biggest joyous party to date. Super-efficient Eva asked her friend, Doris to help

her by being the Floor Manageress!! The Celebrants ranged in age from 4 to 14 and

all of the participants loved the male Spiderman, Isaac and the female Spiderwoman,

Natalie. Natalie also bought a cuddly stuffed toy for each Celebrant. Eva was also

joined by 5 Teachers, from a prestigious private Primary School on Hong Kong

Island who came as Volunteers to see how we deliver birthday happiness. They

were impressed and will promote more volunteer sessions, in addition to seeing

other ways to assist in our mission. Another Volunteer was Eva from the Inter

Cultural Education who like all the volunteers came not only from Hong Kong but

from around the world. She appreciated that we not only deliver birthday happiness

but by bringing in volunteers with different backgrounds it helps to promote cultural

understanding, a key objective of I.C.E. For the fun part of the joyous party, Eva had

games like The Memory Game and there were no winners as everyone got a handful

of chocolate. The beautiful 3 layered cake was made by Mabel and was a great hit

with many taking the small amount left over home. The wonderful volunteers then

served each table with spaghetti, garlic chicken wings and jelly. The yummy cake

was greatly appreciated. Our new volunteer, Ruth made some cookies at home and

brought in a mini popcorn maker and made popcorn and cookies for everyone to

enjoy at home. All the Celebrants received suitable birthday gifts from BHA and

Arpita’s Aries Enterprise donated to each Celebrant a customised water bottle with

their name on it. It was her daughter’s birthday on the same day and wanted the

other Celebrants to have a special gift from Aarya. Each Celebrant also got a small

bouquet of flowers from Vyom whose mother owns a flower shop in Discovery Bay

(https://www.instagram.com/theflowerclubdb/) It truly was a great joyous party and

super-efficient Eva has shown that we can deliver joyous parties on a larger scale

than we are used to and we can reach even more less fortunate children with

birthday happiness. Well done everyone.

For more photos and videos please visit our website and Social Media Pages.

NEW PARTNERING ORGANISATION

The Directors would like to thank our WebMistress, Ms. Nida Labausa for introducing

us to the Inter Cultural Education (https://icehongkong.com/) Inter Cultural Education

is a Social Enterprise that promotes the concept of the global citizen through cross

cultural dialogue. Community Members will go into Schools to promote better cultural

understanding by giving talks, going into classes to talk to the Students and

Members have given demonstrations like cooking native dishes and in the case of

Nida gave a demonstration on cooking traditional Filipino food. They are trying to

make the Students into global citizens. This aligns with one of our objectives to

promote awareness of opportunities globally. I.C.E. have also agreed to introduce

us to the Schools they serve and will promote any joyous parties to their Community

Members in the hope they will join us as Volunteers.

DONATIONS

Earlier this year we kindly received a large collection of donated toys from Mr. Gary

Ferreira, JAS Forwarding and Coppel Mexico. They contacted us again wishing to

donate some clothes, belts, dresses, bags and rucksacks. We started giving them

out as prizes and presents at the joyous party in the Common Living Room.

Everyone appreciated the kind donation by Jorge and the Coppel Team. Thank you

very much.

The Directors would like to thank Ms. Ruth Chan, a new Volunteer who joined us for

the first time at the joyous party in the Common Living Room. She really enjoyed

herself and shared her thoughts with her friend, Ms. Florence Leddet-Cheung who

unfortunately is leaving Hong Kong for France later this year. Florence kindly

donated some toys that we used in the joyous party in Harmony House as gifts in

Gift Boxes for the Celebrants, departure gifts and a donation for the children living in

Harmony House’s sheltered home where children and women get professional help.

On behalf of everyone in our Family, Florence thank you very much for your

kindness and generosity that will have a lasting effect on so many lives. Thank you.

Recently Ms. Claire Park contacted us after a discussion with our Volunteer, Louise

Kaus. Louise told her about our mission to bring birthday happiness to as many less

fortunate children as possible. Louise has been a Volunteer at joyous parties and

gave Claire a full explanation on how a joyous party works and that we are always

looking for donations. Claire was so touched that she decided to donate a large

quantity of balloons, streamers and candles. Unfortunately, Claire cannot attend a

joyous party as she will shortly return to the UK after 12 happy years in Hong Kong.

Thank you very much Claire and good luck with your future. Part of your kind heart

will remain in Hong Kong every time we use your decorations. Thank you very much.

THANK YOU FROM CARITAS LOK YI SCHOOL

You may recall in a previous Newsletter we had a number of stuffed animals donated

by Ms. Nicole Frolich. We delivered one of the large stuffed tigers to the Principal,

Ms. Oi Ling Mok. She said that the pupils who have mental disabilities love the tiger

and she sent a thank you message to Nicole.