| WHEN SONSHINE COMES TO MORE THAN 60, 000 CHILDREN |
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| Celebrating the 5th National Childrens Day |
The Big Day
As early as six o’clock in the morning of April 25, excited children from all over Davao started arriving. Sonshine Land’s gates opened at exactly eight o’clock, and when it did, the whole Sonshine Lane was covered with children, in their free party hats and colorful t-shirts, all smiles, hands waving and practically running as they entered their so called ‘dream come true land’.
A total of one hundred booths decorated the Sonshine fairgrounds that one fine day. This include stone age, shoot that ball, clown theater, face painting tent, pastry island booths, ice cream land booths, candy land booths, milk land booths, popcorn booths, win-a-toy booth, dino pen (where children can talk to moving and speaking dinosaurs), food marathon booth, puppet house, kiddie show (a fully air-conditioned cinema for kids), juice booth, thank you wall, feeding station, inflated castle, giant slide and a gigantic cake
Sonshine Across the Land
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Since 2008, the five-hectare compound of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The Name Above in the New Jerusalem, Davao City, Philippines, has been converted to Sonshine Land, a local-version of Disneyland, in time for the birthday celebration of the Appointed Son of God, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy at the start of the quarter, every year.
Pastor Quiboloy is also the founder of the Children’s Joy Foundation. Knowing the joy a birthday party would bring to kids who could barely eat three times a day, Pastor Quiboloy decided to celebrate his birthday every year by treating poor children to a big birthday blowout. This gave birth to the National Children's Day. For five years now, April 25 not just signifies Pastor Quiboloy's birthday but all Filipino children, whose parent could not give them a party during their birth date.
Most of the time, Sonshine Land is compared to the famous theme park, Disneyland. But the former is different and much more special than the latter. Only the children of rich people can go to Disney Land while Sonshine Land has been made and is open for everyone. It is only in Sonshine Land, where everyone can get in and get hold of everything in it free of charge.
This year marked the 5th National Children’s Day. NCD 2010 promised to be much grander and bigger than the previous years. And so it was!
From eight in the morning until the last kids who remained until nine in the evening, these booths remained open and offered kids, and parents, an abundant and unlimited supply of FREE pastries, bread, candies, ice cream, cotton candy, slices of birthday cake, toys, free McDonald’s lunch, cold drinks, milk, a grand Sonshine parade starring the best dance performance of every child’s favorite cartoon characters, superheroes and princesses on more than ten huge, prettily-adorned floats.
Apart from these, there were also free rides—composed of the all time favorites ferries wheel and carousel, the elephant ride, rabbit ride and spider ride.
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As 30,000 children from Davao celebrated their ‘adopted’ birthday in Sonshine Land in Davao, thousands of indigent children from all over the Philippines were likewise treated to a big birthday bash simultaneously.
In Luzon, birthday treat for kids in five different areas were prepared. One is in Project 8, Quezon City, where more than a thousand squatter-based children were chosen to have one day of fun and excitement. The other is in Antipolo City. Here, the beneficiaries were the Dumagats, a sub-tribe which belongs to the Aeta family. The children of the typhoon-ravaged La Trinidad, Benguet also forgot about the calamity they have just gone through, even for a day, when the Children’s Joy Foundation volunteers came to their place and gave them a party—complete with clowns, birthday food, cake, ice cream and toys for everyone. In Laguna, CJF sponsors who have been supporting the foundation for years, helped out in coming up with a grand birthday party for the province’s children. Sonshine likewise has spread far north—to Nueva Vizcaya, where another thousand of children enjoyed a birthday bash, a gift from the Appointed Son. |
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In Visayas, children from Aklan and Ormoc, Leyte could not find the way to say ‘thank you’ to the man, who has chosen them and has fulfilled their wish of having the birthday party, they never experienced before due to financial constraints.
Mindanao, where a huge number of its provinces were affected by the onslaught of the El Niño phenomenon, was also reached by the rays of Sonshine. Thereby, inflicting huge smiles on the faces of the thousands of children from Sultan Kudarat, Agusan del Sur, Mati and Cagayan de Oro City despite the damages imposed by climate change on their families’ farm and crops. Like the other children in other islands of the country, they, too, were treated to unlimited ice cream, cake, spaghetti, chicken, hotdogs, rice and gifts.
The 3 Million Cause
The April 25 adopted birthday of Filipino children pioneered by Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy is part of the Children’s Joy Foundation’s cause—which is to help, feed, clothe and send to school three million children in the Philippines. He started targeting to help this number of children in 2008. And by the looks of it, it won’t be long until Pastor Quiboloy is going to achieve the great 3 million cause that will shed light to the life of impoverished Filipino children. |
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