Play Day

So today I volunteered through work to help 250 local school kids get out and PLAY! It was a fun day but very exhausting. I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow and when my head hits the pillow tonight I'll be out like a light.

The morning started early - 7am - arriving at the Soccer Centre. First task of the day was to unpack and blow up 250+ soccer balls to be placed in gift bags for the kids. Included in these bags were small stress balls and cards on the Olympic athletes.

Once that was done it was off for orientation and waiting for the kids to arrive. There were 4 schools with 2 teams each - one grade 4 class and one grade 5 class.

Banners we painted & signed to be hung up at the schools.

Volunteers from work.

Before starting the day they had a few speeches from various individuals and then introduced the 6 Olympic athletes who would be spending the day with the kids. They were: Catriona Le May Doan, Helen Upperton, Heather Moyse, Justyn Warner, a waterpolo guy (can't remember his name) and a paralympian (can't remember his name either).

We had everyone on the field - kids, Olympians, volunteers - and took a group picture.

There were 3 fields of events for the kids to rotate through during the day. The first field was with parachutes and the kids seemed to really like this.

In the second field we had floor hockey and soccer. To test the kids, we also had a radar gun to see how fast they could kick a soccer ball. EVERYONE had to try this and competed to be the best.

The final field was my favourite. It was the obstacle course. Kids raced two-by-two in the course to see who was the fastest. All the kids had huge grins on their faces coming out of this. Competing with their schoolmates, teachers and volunteers. It was a blast.

At lunch I was lucky (or he was lucky to sit by me!) to sit beside one of the COOs for lunch and we had a nice conversation. He knows who I am as I'm the person who is looking after 3 of the major projects for the company. He asked what I did to deserve that.

All-in-all it was a really fun day.