Chinese New Year Celebration with Flying Seniors
Continued to embrace the joy and vibrancy of the Year of Loong (Dragon), Flying Seniors Project Leaders Teresa Lo and Ambrose Ng wanted to bless the elderly people who are living alone or staying without their children. In collaboration with the Western District Elderly Community Center and Raimondi College, we organized a celebration time on February 17 for the elderly from the Western District with fun games and some interactive activities.
Teresa first prepared some online “Finding Mistakes” games for everyone. Ten students from Raimondi College assisted the elderly people in finding the mistakes in the pictures. However, the Flying Seniors were too quick to point out the mistakes and the elderly friends were totally out of their leagues. After the online brain teasers, the students led the elderly friends to play the “Actionary” Game. Each time two students and two elderly lined up in the front. One person was responsible for acting and the last person was to guess. For some of the difficult ones, we all laughed so hard about the funny actions and expressions.
Finally, Teresa showed us how to fold a piece of paper and cut it out into many beautiful heart shapes. It looked easy to do. However, when we tried it, there were many failed attempts. Our elderly friends did not give up and kept trying it. Finally, when they could cut the beautiful hearts in a circle, they were very happy.
One of the students, Sum Yi, said, “The paper cutting was fun and challenging. I was trying to help but ended up making a lot of unsuccessful attempts. The elderly friends were so smart and impressed me a lot.”
Teresa said, “The purpose of the games and activities was to train the coordination of the brain and hands of the elderly friends. Also, the most important was to help them feel the sense of achievement and success.”
Before we bid our farewell, students helped present gifts and blessings to the elderly friends.