The Aricent tradition of sharing and caring continued this year with Aricentians visiting the Carterpuri Primary School on the occasion of Children’s Day. On 14th of November, 20 volunteers, members of the iCAN club visited the school to meet the children and distribute gifts. The enthusiasm in the air was infectious. Happy faces, pink with excitement, peeping out of the windows reminded the volunteers of their own school days!

There were sweaters, schoolbags, notebooks, geometry boxes, pencils, erasers etc. that were to be distributed amongst the children. Col. Taneja (President, NGO- Friends of Rural India) had organised for these goodies, through the contributions that come from the GAYE (Give As You Earn) program. Aricentians wanting to bring a difference in the lives of under-privileged children, contribute money from their salary through the GAYE program. These funds are utilised to meet the needs of the school children.

Volunteers quickly divided themselves in batches and with some assistance from the class teacher, started distributing the gifts. Like children everywhere, the kids at the Carterpuri School too were more interested in the snack boxes than in the geometry boxes! The distribution went off smoothly with voices of ‘thank you ma’am and thank you sir’ chirruping from every classroom.

The day also saw a drawing competition for the students of Class Five. They were given a choice between two topics namely- Diwali and Children’s Day. Diwali was the topic of choice for everybody. Drawing sheets and a box of crayons were handed over to each child after which the Picassos-in-the making started to paint their works of art with star bursts and lights. While the class five students were painting, the volunteers were getting better acquainted with their new friends in the other classes. The children were happy talking, sharing their world and their knowledge with the volunteers. They proudly showed us their knowledge of poems, songs, movies and general knowledge.

As the visit drew to an end, the winner of the drawing competition was decided and a special gift was handed over. Amid a lot of loud and cheery good-byes, lots of smiles, the volunteers finally left the school premises with feeling of a day well spent. It was a day full of smiles, a day full of happiness and a day that brought back memories of Children’s Day at school. Everybody returned richer, with wonderful memories and smiles.

It was a day celebrated in the right spirit with the right children!

A big thank-you to Aanchal Khanna, Anil Bindal, Anil.K.Goel, Bhupesh Pangti, Chetna Sharma, Debasri Sarkar, Deepak Dabas, Hina Yadav, Manisha Kaushik, Mudit Kumar Jain, Neha Chopra, Richa Gupta, Rishav Dev, Sanjukta Sen, Shamba Chatterjee, Shikha Kathpal, Shivani Sharma and Vidhi Gyani (members of iCAN) who made this day memorable.