Happy days, we all like those. We spend our days in the pursuit of happiness, making good things happen so that we can well, be happy. And a lot of us have a lot to be happy about – happy families, healthy kids, good friends, decent jobs, a nice day out. But then not everyone gets to be happy as often as they hope to.
Like families battling childhood cancer.
Childhood cancer isn’t something we like to think about, because it’s scary and it makes you feel helpless and thankful all at the same time. It’s not something that’s within our control, like we can prevent it by feeding only organic food or taking more multivites. We don’t know why it happens to kids and how we can stop it from happening. So we hope and pray that our kids stay strong and healthy and that we don’t ever have to sit in the doctor’s office to hear those scary words, “I’m sorry, it’s cancer.”
Some parents have been through that, though. More than a thousand of them. According to the Childhood Cancer Registry, 1,103 children were diagnosed with cancer between 1997 and 2005 in Singapore, with more than half below the age of 5. That’s over a thousand parents being told that their kids have cancer.
For them, happy days are hard to come by. They’re happy if their kid makes it through another round of chemotherapy or even just another day without puking or needles or mood swings or pain.
So we’re having our first event on 31 October. Mark your calendars, folks, because we are going to make it a HAPPEE DAY. I approached the Children’s Cancer Foundation asking if there’s anything we could do for these kids and they said, “why yes, yes there was. How about organizing an event to bring a little joy to them and give them a reason to smile, even if it’s just for a while?”
That’s why Mother, Inc will be organizing a mini carnival at Hort Park (venue kindly sponsored by Hort Park) for 30 children fighting cancer. There will be mascots, balloon sculptors, face painting, magic shows, a truckload of balloons and tons of more cool stuff.
I know the carnival is just one day of fun for these kids who have to be brave and go through years of jabs and treatment. Thing is, we can’t be there through it all, but one day is a start. To let them know that they’re not facing this alone. That there are people who care and are proud of them for fighting and are cheering them on. It’s a day we get to meet them and spend a morning together.
Here’s where you come in.
1. Be there.
If you’re free on the morning of the 31st, come on by to Hort Park for the event as a volunteer. We’ll need help with the logistics, carnival booths and most of all, to make friends with the families who are attending the event. Bring your kids, who will have a blast at the carnival and they’ll get to make some new friends at the same time. Also, if you have some ideas or skills (like if you can eat fire or juggle chainsaws or sing with helium) that you would like to contribute, just drop me a mail at daphne [at] motherinc [dot] org or via the contact form . That would be so awesome.
2. Donate.
If you can’t make it down but would like to help anyway, you can do so by donating to the Children’s Cancer Foundation. They provide financial aid to families who struggle with the burden of chemotherapy treatments and surgeries and your donations will go a long way in showing that you care. You can donate anytime from now until 31 October. Give a little and make someone’s day a little happier.
Click the donate button and select Happee Day under “Donation For”.
Update: Just to be clear, proceeds from the fund-raising go directly to the Children’s Cancer Foundation and not to the running of this event. We’re riding on sponsorships and personal donations for that, more updates to come.
Finally, do publicize the event on your blog. You can grab this lovely widget (by the way, the artwork is by my friend JQ Ong, more on that in further updates) to put on your site, blog about the event and share it with your readers, tweet about it, share in on Facebook (you can use my share buttons at the bottom right hand of the page) tell other moms you know, shout it from the rooftops.
Make it a Happee Day for children with cancer
Just copy and paste the following html code on the text widget box of your blog.
<p style=”text-align: center;”><a href=”https://www.motherinc.org/happee-day/make-it-a-happee-day-for-children-with-cancer/”><img title=”HappeeDaywidget” src=”https://www.motherinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/HortParkwidget.jpg” alt=”” width=”160″ height=”300″ /></a><a href=”https://www.motherinc.org/happee-day/make-it-a-happee-day-for-children-with-cancer/” target=”_blank”>Make it a Happee Day for children with cancer</a></p>
Update: Sher Maine from Offsprings has very kindly offered an alternative way of putting up the widget particularly for those of you on the Blogger/Blogspot platform.
1. Save the image of the widget onto your desktop.
2. Go to your Blogger Dashboard
3. select Design
4. select Add a Gadget
5. scroll down and little and select Picture (not Text)
6. Download the image of the icon and then put in the link
PS. All the latest updates will be on the Happee Day page.
PPS. As a show of solidarity, leave a comment below!
