Matthew Kim, GNN Editor-In-Chief
Monday, October 29th. For many people, it may have been nothing less than a date two days before Halloween. However, for twenty-five or students in WGSS’s Humanitarian Club, it was a very special day for pumpkin carving with elders at the Langley Gardens Senior Home.
Wait, hold up. What are these Langley Gardens Senior Home visits you are talking about? Well, Humanitarian Club has many different volunteering opportunities available for students to participate in through the school. Within the choices offered, Langley Garden Senior Home visits are one of those opportunities. One to two Mondays per month, students are taken to a senior home where they are able to connect with the seniors there, either through seasonal activities like Christmas decorating or more commonly, playing good old-fashioned table games with the elders. It’s calm, fun and simple for everyone. The elders love it, they receive that connection with youth that they otherwise would not have been able to get within their confined space.
However, this special day was different. Rather than playing Yahtzee or cards, we were given many different sized pumpkins to paint and carve with the help of various elders in the spirit of Halloween! Volunteers were given cutlery, stencils, paint and an ample amount of time to carve and paint up the best pumpkin they can make! This event heavily relied on the participation of the volunteers, though. If everyone did not have fun in each other’s company, then the visit would not have been successful!
Well, the pumpkin carving group really delivered. Not only did we have some cooperation from every single one of the volunteers that day, but it was so heated with creativity in the room, that elders and youth alike were connecting with each other with the presence of pumpkins! Creativity flowed through the entire room, as at the end of the day, we got pumpkins ranging from Linus from Peanuts, Bongo Cat, and the Snapchat Ghost!
Overall, it was an amazing day. All of the volunteers should be really proud of themselves for a successful afternoon. If you are interested in participating in these types of volunteering opportunities, please visit Ms. Bryant-Taneda’s room during lunch on Thursdays for our Humanitarian Club Meetings! Anyone can be a humanitarian and it definitely shines through during events like these towards the seniors who carved pumpkins with WGSS.
