Today we were volunteering at a carnival to celebrate Christmas for those who may not have a home to celebrate it in or had the materials to celebrate it as richly as we often do. During the several hours that we were working in the carnival, I felt bad not giving them an even better experience than they already were having, because some of the kids coming to play at the baseball station I helped run were frustrated because we were outdoors and the wind was not helping the air current flowing out of the cone help the ball stay in the air.
During carnival, I met a young boy maybe 5, 6 years old who was by himself and participating in the Spongebob Bouncehouse as well as the baseball station I was running, during the second time he was visiting my station he said he was lost and looking for someone. I asked him what she looked like, and of course being young he was, was bad at remembering what she looked like, he also wasn’t acting like the fact that he was looking for her was urgent so I didn’t know what to do in the situation. So I sent him back to the bounce house to play some more and keeping an eye on him all the same to see if someone was coming for him. At the end of the carnival I saw what looked like an older sibling call out his name and the boy came sliding down to join him to go what I assumed to be home. I had never felt quite as relieved as I did, but I was glad that I remembered that an adult always says “If you are lost, stay where you are and we’ll find you” because the boy stayed in that general vicinity for the duration of his stay and I believe the fact that he didn’t wander off made sure that he was easy to find. However I do wish that I had been a little more proactive and had told someone with more power than me that he might have been lost, maybe then I would not have been so freaked out when I should have been focused on helping more kids have a very Merry Christmas.
