May Play
Thursday saw the second of the May half term community play days, this time, and for the first time at St Andrews School. Organised by Sandra and Jayne with a whole host of people contributing on the day. Jayne’s husband Peter came along to help. Lynn, Lauren and Ruth offered their helping hands, and Graham the caretaker was an absolute diamond, nothing was too much trouble.
The day started at 11am with a whole range of art activities set up in the hall space from key ring making to mask making.
Outside we had use of the schools fantastic resources and Sandra more or less brought a play centre with her, enabling us to set up a shaded play area with play mats and a ball pool.
It has to be said that the children loved the duck treasure hunt, searching all around the school grounds for 18 different ducks. That is, until a group of young girls decided to collect them all and create a line of ducks instead!
A fab lunch of hot dogs, sandwiches, crisps, biscuits, fruit and unlimited juice was provided and there were hot drinks available in return for a donation.
Wigan Athletic Football Club joined us after lunch and set up the huge inflatable goals. We had some very talented young people showing off their skills.
After football we moved to water games, with Mums joining in the fun. Unfortunately everyone was too busy avoiding the water balloons rather than taking photos of this part of the day. Crusty the Pie joined us before it was time to go home, with every child taking home a bubble wand. We’d like to thank the team for their hard work and playfulness. It was great to work together.
It was lovely to see so many generations playing and having fun together on the day, with a Grandad who was last on the school site 70 years ago when he attended the school. Everyone pitched in and helped out too, so many people got involved in clearing away after the fun. £52.22 was left in donations, with a super duper gift of £20 from Lynn. We really couldn’t believe it and would like to thank her for her generosity.
Another big thank you must go to the school, for opening their doors and sharing their resources during the holidays. And a big thank you to school governors, Sandra and Jayne for making it happen and organising it so well. And a thank you too to the Holiday Activity Fund team who trusted us to spend the cash wisely and for coming to visit yesterday.
Next stop is the summer holidays. If you’d like to get involved and contribute to community play you’d be more than welcome. A community that plays together, stays together.