So last Sunday (08/07/18), me and the Zhu Clan Jakarta Youth community were doing a charity event at Caritas nursing home (Panti Werdha Caritas) under the theme “Act of Kindness”.
A brief history about Caritas nursing home: Caritas Nursing Home was built by Mr. Suparji under Bina Bhakti Foundation (Yayasan Bina Bhakti). There’re 3 nursing home that was built under it: Bina Bhakti Nursing Home at Curug-Tangerang, Caritas Nursing Home at East Bekasi, and the latest was Stella Maris nursing home at Mount Sindul-Bogor.
Not less than 41 grandmas and 1 grandpa were live at the Caritas branch, most of them were sent by their kids / relatives. Sometimes their kids were living abroad / in another town, or if their kids were already deceases, they were sent to the nursing home by their nephew. Sometimes they were sent by the police, because he/she was a missing person who couldn’t remember their past home, hence doesn’t have any roof to live.
When the event was started at 02.00 pm, the grandma and grandpa had been seated in the hall facing the table at the front space where a cross was placed on the table and the wall. They welcome us with a grin and happy faces. Thought most of them were seated on the wheelchair because of difficulty to stand and walk, we could see their spirit from their broad smiles and their shimmering warm eyes.
After a short introduction from the MC (Johny) of all the members of the Zhu Clan Jakarta Youth community, the event resumed to opening speech from Mrs. Tati as the representative of Caritas Nursing Home.
After the opening speech, the next thing that listed on our rundown was asking the grandma & grandpa to dance along with us with the old 70’s songs that we’ve prepared for them. But since most of the grandma & grandpa had difficulty to walk-let alone ask them to dance along-so we were playing the spiritual song through our phone and invite them to sing along with us.
Then we invited the grandma & grandpa who’d like to perform a song in the front. A lot of grandmas were enthusiastically raising their hand and perform songs from Mandarin to popular Church songs.
The ice breaker was when we had a little games called “Who Remember It” (Siapa yang Ingat). So we asked all the members of Zhu Clan Jakarta Youth community to get to know at the minimum of 3 grandmas’s / grandpas’s names, their age, the number of their children and grandchildren. We immediately mingle with grandma & grandpa, listen to their stories, and even took selfies with them! It was a heart-warming intimate moment for us to see how happy they were when we greet them and asked them to tell us a story about themselves. A few of us might have reminded them about their own grandchildren / children, and that make us kind of sad :'(.
Before the closing, we wanted to give a bit performance for grandma & grandpa. We performed dance with a few songs: Goyang Dua Jari, Lagi Syantik, and Maumere. Although we didn’t prepare for these performance (it was only an impulsive impulse from the MC :P), we could pull out our best version of freestyle dance following the song’s rhythm.
Finally, the event was coming to an end, we have a closing speech from the representative of Zhu Clan Jakarta Youth community, William Chu and also a closing speech from Mrs. Tati.
In this charity event, we were giving goodie bags to each grandma & grandpa consist of daily needs such as biscuit, tea bag, socks, hand towel, eucalyptus oil, etc. We also gave the Nursing Home cash amount of Rp 2,000,000 to help the operational fund.
Last words, we were very grateful for the afternoon we spent at Caritas Nursing Home. One of the greatest gift for us was to be able to accompany them and seeing the Grandmas & Grandpas looking so cheerful and happy after a short moment we spend with them. I hope someday in the future we might have a chance to be able to visit Caritas Nursing Home again.
Panti Werdha Caritas (Caritas Nursing Home)
Jl. Kusuma Utara No.5, Duren Jaya, Bekasi Timur, Kota Bks, Jawa Barat 17111
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