On Saturday, 11th, May 2024, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM, the Roslyn Branch of Aylus volunteered at the Greenvale house run by the Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County (CP Nassau). CP Nassau is a nonprofit organization that provides the best possible care for adults and children with cerebral palsy. One of the programs they provide is residential homes that provide a safe, comfortable, and positive living environment. CPNassau enhances the life of so many individuals and we are so grateful to get the opportunity to help them with their cause.
Today our volunteers planned many fun activities including baking, uno, arts and crafts for Mother’s Day, connect 4, and various card games. We started with baking. All the residents participated in baking the cookies by combining ingredients and mixing them. We had a slight problem with the cookie dough because we didn’t read the instructions carefully. We accidentally mixed in the dry ingredients too early. But we will learn from this mistake and will remember to read the instructions more carefully next time. Either way, while the cookies were baking, everyone could smell the sweet chocolatey scent from the oven. When they were finished baking, everyone tried some cookies. They tasted pretty good despite the mixing issue and one resident even finished a whole plate! After the delicious cookies, we started our games. We played a few rounds of Uno. It was super fun with one of the games being so close and eventually having a winner. Then one of the residents taught us all how to play Poker. Even though none of us knew how to play, the resident did an excellent job teaching us the rules. We played a few warmup rounds and then we decided to play first to 3 wins. It was fun learning a new card game. Keeping a “poker” face was hard whenever we had a good hand.
After this, we painted picture frames as Mother’s Day gifts. Everyone put their different twists and designs to make their gifts a special and unique gift for their Moms! All the picture frames came out beautiful, with some being red and yellow, or blue, or purple. We also designed them with different accessories like rhinestones and feathers. The residents stamped their names and the word Mom on their picture frames. After we created these gifts, we spent the rest of our time playing other games. One of the residents wanted to teach us a 2 player card game and one of us played with him. Then, the other two residents had a few rounds of intense Connect 4 games that brought out their true competitiveness. Today’s experience volunteering taught us that you can always learn something new from others. We learned that you should always pay attention and be attentive when talking to someone and that they can always help you in different ways.
Volunteers that participated: Maxim Li (3 hours), Leo Zheng (3 hours), and Nicholas Eng (3 hours)
Reporter: Maxim Li
