Pine Hill Children's Festival report

Introduction

The purpose of the festival was to bring all the children of our neighbourhood together with their families to learn about the theme of unity through songs, games, and arts and crafts. This was a service project run by the junior youth group of Pine Hill and their friends and families who supported the preparation and the actual day of the festival.

The day of the festival (18 November 2023)

We were all so grateful that the day of the festival was a very sunny bright day. We had a registration table where kids were given wrist bands based on their age and year in school and adults also got a wristband. Everyone was encouraged to sign their name on a ‘sign in’ board by choosing a star to write their name on and pegging it on the board. While everyone was waiting for more people to arrive, the ones who were there started with a scavenger hunt.

After finishing the scavenger hunt we then brought everyone together and gave a brief introduction to the festival involving safety rules and the purpose of unity. After that all the children moved to their stations and started to do activities that involved unity. There were four stations run by the junior youth with an adult supporting them. There was a friendship bracelet station, a games station, a sing along station, and a colouring station. All the children who participated and their parents had an amazing time. The festival ended with popcorn and ice pops.

We also had healthy snacks for light refreshments such as apples, carrots, celery and dips and oranges. The junior youth asked the children what their highlights were and here are some of their comments:

“We should have this every day!”
“Next time can I help?”
“My favourite part of the festival was the colouring”.
“For singing out of 10, I'd give it a 2”.
“I loved the friendship bracelets; can I take it home with me?”
“The popcorn was the best, and the games too”.

Overall, the comments from the parents were really positive and they enjoyed it and even participated in the singing and encouraged their own kids to learn the songs and the actions. At the end of the festival, we were able to have a short reflection with our junior youth who all shared their thoughts, they were all inspired and happy at the success of the festival and felt they could do it better for next time. This might become a regular project for our group.

We had a lot of people come and not all the families who are in our children’s class and junior youth groups attended. During the festival we had over 100 people join us at different times - maybe 110-120. We even had Bahá'í friends from Christchurch and Oamaru who wanted to learn about running a children’s festival join us and they also helped us out on the day.

Our junior youth group was very grateful and thankful for the $200 from the Dunedin Local Spiritual Assembly and we have included our receipts for how the $200 was used that contributed to the costs of running our festival.