At this time of year it feels extra important to give back to the community – that’s why a group of us decided to volunteer for the YWCA Pape Apartments Holiday dinner – a recent GenNext appointment that was sponsored and hosted by Calvary Church. A few of us had done a similar event last year – and were looking forward to the evening.

We arrived at 4:30 and were greeted by a wonderful group of women who were responsible for organizing the dinner for a local Women’s residence. When we arrived they gave us a tour of all the great crafts they had planned for the children at the event. There was button making, colouring, tattoos (temporary of course), and a greeting card designing station. Our job was to ‘play’ at the stations with the children….hardly a job at all!

At 6:00pm as our ‘station’ filled with little voices we lost count of the number of children in attendance – all of whom were ready to have fun before dinner.

The dinner was catered by the nearby senior’s lodge – we were invited to sit as guests - it was a wonderful meal and from all the chatter coming from the tables the company was just as good.

At the end of the night as we packed up and got ready to go home, it felt like we’d spent a great night with great people – and not like we’d been working at all.