CHILDREN'S CHARITY WALKATHON

Saturday, 2nd December 2006....Arrived at Ngee Ann City Plaza at 8.30am and saw students from MINDS arriving as well....so we were not late...haha. The turnout was good. Didn't expect so many people taking part in the walkathon and the carnival. There were about 30 stalls that day, selling things ranging from food, to handmade products, game stalls, etc.

Got our t-shirts from Melissa and the one for Jonathan was too big so he went for the walkathon with what he wore....the Channel 5 Cares T-shirt.

The walkathon was flagged off by Zoe Tay. Jonathan's partner was Paul Twohill.

Clients from Spastic's GROW workshop were also at the walkathon. They had a stall selling goodies too.

We were in the front row at the starting line up. Walking with Paul was a bomb man...This guy is really funny. We talked alot while we walk, anything under the sun, his school, his busy schedule, how to wheel Jonathan's buggy...haha. He was unfamiliar about pushing the buggy so he was very careful. But later we found out that his "minders" warned him not to do any stunts with Jonathan in his buggy..haha.

Along the way, we greeted passers-by and Paul will stay "Merry Christmas". The walk was from Ngee Ann to Tanglin Mall, then cross the road at the traffic junction and walk back to Ngee Ann.

From being the lead at the beginning, we ended up being the 3rd group or so to finish. Towards the end of the walk, Paul asked me permission to speed up and both of us ran with Jonathan's buggy to the finish line! He was finally free to do what he had wanted in the beginning...hah!

The weather was fantastic. No sunshine, cloudy day, breezy. It only drizzled lightly when we reached our finish line. After that, the weather was perfect.

The carnival was great. Melissa put up a store to sell her hand-made jewellery and Jeremiah (from Ngee Ann Poly) and his friends also sold the printed cards. Our school's music and drama group performed 2 numbers to great applause from the audience. Guest of Honor was Mrs S R Nathan.

Jonathan enjoyed the walk. We left at 12pm cos he was already tired and we have made our rounds at the carnival. Hope they raised a lot of money for the charities, which includes our school.

We ended our day taking a picture with Kooky, the Channel 5 Cares mascot.

I'm very happy cos Jonathan's daddy participated too. Perhaps next year we'll do it again. Maybe try to get sponsors so that Jonathan's friends can do the walkathon and get friends involved.

Why not? It's for a good cause.