Poo-Poo Rocket Adventures can be fun when exploring other countries, but also extremely meaningful if they involve helping the needy. During this adventure, we volunteered at two Christmas parties right here at home that had been organised by Food From The Heart (FFTH).
FFTH is a non-profit organisation that reaches out to needy families by providing them with food and toys. It first started with the Bread Programme, involving volunteers who collect unsold bread at the end of the day from various hotels and bakeries. The bread is then transported to welfare homes and senior activity centres by the volunteers.
At the Christmas parties, our job was to man several game booths that resembled arcade games. These had been lovingly handmade by a retiree who built them in his free time. Plenty of effort had gone into designing the charming and somewhat old-fashioned games. The maker meticulously planned how they were going to work and constantly tested to improve them. Do you want to know what handmade arcade games look like? Read on to find out!
With the game maker and his amazing balloon sculpture!
It was an extremely cheerful atmosphere at the parties as many of the children had not been to one before. They were all excited to try out the games and were on tenterhooks before the booths became operational. All of them were happily jumping up and down! What's more, there was a variety of interesting prizes to be won, ranging from toys to stationery that had all been sponsored by kind donors. Part of the fun for us was to decide which prizes to give the children. We rewarded those who put in more effort with bigger and grander prizes!
There were many interesting and quirky games that the game maker had constructed. One involved shooting down mini-figurines with toy guns and another required the player to guide a ball through a maze of obstacles. The most popular was the Angry Birds game, as these feathered creatures were all the rage at that time. It involved using balls to knock down many Angry Birds. Some of the children and even their grandparents lined up multiple times to play!
Knocking down Angry Birds!
Shooting down mini-figurines!
One of the unique games involved dropping several 5-cent coins into a small bowl at the bottom of a fish tank filled with water. The players used different tactics to try to drop the coins into the bowl. It looked far easier than it turned out because the water tended to deflect the coins and frustrate the players. So, dropping the coin in a straight line did not work! Most players simply put their hands fully into the water to place the coins in the bowl, but surprisingly, even this did not work as the water seemed to push the coins away. The players were all baffled at the end result and tried again and again, but the same thing happened! The successful players soon figured out that they had to drop the coins at an angle for them to fall into the bowl.
Those who played and won were thrilled with their performance while others who failed were slightly disappointed. However, everyone had a whale of a time trying out the games. All of them kept talking about how much fun they had and were extremely pleased with their many prizes!
In a nutshell, we feel that this adventure was extremely meaningful as we not only got to help the needy, but also experienced what manning a game booth feels like. Plus it was delightful to see quaint handmade game booths still existing in modern Singapore! We really hope that we can have another go at doing our part for the less fortunate. The experience was definitely worth 5 Poo-Poo Rockets!
