An integral part of the CAS system is service, and I continued in the Hope for Kids service, which I am very passionate about. As a service leader, I am also responsible for much of the planning, and therefore it will be much more work for me. On the second Thursday back from school there was a session for new students to choose their service and service leaders, including Seth and I for Hope for Kids, had to be present to explain what our service was about. The following week we had a planning session which included recapping what our aims are for the year. The main aims that we identified are shown below:

1. Interact with the kids as best as we can, so that we can entertain and teach the children as well as possible.
2. Have fundraisers to increase the budget of the service in order to be able to buy materials and sponsors one kid’s education.
3. Conduct the annual food drive.

Seth and I started working on the timeline of what will be done for upcoming sessions, and we obtained the necessary contacts from the teacher in charge, Ms Tanuja, to book a school bus and let the hospital when we will come to interact with the children. Seth and I decided that in order to get the whole group engaged and committed, we would always rotate who in the group will buy materials for upcoming sessions. We were aware that this would not be less, but rather more work for us, as we were responsible that the materials were being bought and hence had to make sure the participants were carrying out their expectations.

Later in the semester, we focused on buying, wrapping, and giving Christmas presents to the families at the hospital. We phoned the hospital beforehand to obtain the number of children of different age groups in order to buy suitable presents. After spending one session buying the presents, we used newspaper to wrap them, coloring on some patterns to make them more attractive. The session we brought the presents was a bit stressed as Kenji, Seth and I had to be back on time for the musical. However, it was great to see all the children happily accepting the presents, which I hope makes their time at the hospital a bit more bearable.

I always had to ensure everything was prepared and running smoothly. This is much more work than for most of the other service groups that stay in school, but I think the satisfaction I get from getting better at leading a group and managing activities, as well as knowing we are making a positive contribution to the difficult lives of the children. On a broader scale, I feel fortunate to address the global issue of cancer, particularly as we are working with children, which makes it even more significant for me. Helping these poor children to enjoy parts of their life is a really moving experience for me, but is very rewarding.