Happy Sunday with 150 kids from St.Catherine's Home!

Pravin Tulpule aka Pinto Baba and 9 awesome Toybankers spent a wonderful evening with 150 girls from the St. Catherine's Home in Andheri, Mumbai.

The details of the event has been captured by Deepa who brilliantly executed the latter half of the event by chatting to the kids about the importance of play and fun!

Notes by Deepa: 

"So, the plan for Sunday evening - volunteer with Toybank for a Magic Show being performed for the children at St. Catherine’s Home.  As I reached the venue, I expected to see a Magician performing his regular act and the kids to watch him in awe with their mouths agape in pin drop silence.  

What I did find instead, was a room full of kids roaring with laughter as they joined in chanting the magical mantra “daa daaa dee daaa” to turn the feather rings from an angelic white to a multi colored hue, assertively correct our Magician each time he referred to his voluntary assistants (the little kids) as “good boy”.  Bursting in to gleeful laughter when plastic snakes were out from chip boxes and red “invisible” handkerchiefs disappearing and appearing out of …well….let’s say different places.  Pravin, our Magician in a clown getup, had not just performed some stunts but actually managed to turn the atmosphere in the room into a highly charged, interactive fun session that had us all in splits. (Yes, the Sisters at St. Catherine’s too were laughing out loud!)

Now for the serious stuff, “distribution of the toys and games" (We are serious about that!!!). Well we needed to talk to the girls about the importance of playing boardgames and their contribution in learning and developing various soft skills like team building, taking responsibility of ensuring they are used and kept back in a proper manner, etc. It sounded like an easy task. I stepped in to address the children. It did require a lot more stretching of my vocal chords than it took to celebrate India’s victory at the ICC World Cup in order to get the attention of the girls! 

Then came the most endearing part where we had the children sing the most heartwarming, gratitude song I have ever heard. I am sure all of us had moist eyes.

My evening was well utilized. I had fun. The girls had fun and this is something which I always look forward to. I also managed to take a few shots at badminton and cheer some young budding female cricketers towards the end.

A wonderful Sunday evening well spent and well earned. Thank you Farnaza and the entire Toybank team for allowing me to be part of this endeavor."