The Salvation Army opened the Patvērums Childrens Day Centre in March 2002 to provide a safe environment for underprivileged children from the local community in Riga.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Christmas at Patverums
I've just come up to the office after being down in the centre for a while and you can tell Christmas is upon us!!
Today the staff and I went out to buy presents for all the children and teenagers. It's a great thing to do but can be a little stressful when you buying over 30 presents for a very varied group and only have 4ls (£4) to spend! We succeed though (as always!) and I'm pleased with what we've got them. For those of you that have to know - the girls have got a 'make your own bracelet' pack and a 2007 diary, the boys a sports clock and a key ring!
Also today 2 members of staff and 3 children went and bought the Christmas tree from the market. For me it was strange that Graeme didn't go and buy it with a small group as that was always his job! How times are changing. They did well though and we have a rather large tree with not many decorations on it!! To finish off today this morning I went to the British Embassy and collected 3 large boxes of wrapping paper, 100s of gift tags and 6 boxes of Christmas Crackers! It’s been quite a day!
This week the children and staff are busy preparing for our Christmas party which is on Friday. This year we are putting on a play written by us and will (hopefully) be performed by 4 of the children/teenagers! We're going all angely this year as the play looks at the birth of Jesus from the Angels point of view so every where you look there are cut out angels for the invitations, gifts for parents etc etc!
On Friday we could have as many as 55 people attend the party, a new record for the centre. It is bound to be a crazy afternoon with the play, singing carols, food, games and of course presents!!
Today I had the pleasure of presenting 2 of our children with a printed Christmas card which had their design on the front. This year we held a competition at the centre to design a Christmas card which could be used for TSA in Sweden and Latvia’s 2006 cards. This afternoon Graeme gave me the Latvian edition so I was able to present both Kristaps and Agita with a copy of their cards! They were both really pleased with them (and themselves!!)
So as you can tell like most people at this time of year it’s busy, busy, busy! I’ll post some pictures next week of the party so you can see how it all turned out! Hope you are having a good week and that you are really enjoying this Christmas.
posted by Patverums Childrens Day Centre @ 6:42 pm
Hi!
I just got a Christmascard from my employers (leaders of SA in Sweden). It looks really good! Good job Kristaps!
Ilona