Cheers to Mr. Colbert

Kids at Play

With a bevy of boisterous children, their parents and tired MMESC staff, the Mississippi Migrant Parental Advisory Council's most recent sessions are officially over! This installment of sessions was held at the Golden Moon at Philadelphia, MS - nearly a four hour drive for yours truly. It was well worth the trip as I don't normally get to explore areas outside of the Delta. As usual, there are some places that I think even God forgot about and others are worth revisiting. At any rate, I hope the knowledge gained will be utilized by all parties.

My role for the meeting was to provide transportation for a family (that cancelled at the last minute) and childcare. It's been quite a while since I babysitted anyone. There were approximately 30 kids coming and going throughout the sessions. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. On Friday night, while some kids were watching a movie, I handled bingo. What started off as me playing with two kids turned into a very full table of eager kids. In an effort to pique their interest, I told them they would receive candied apples as their winning prize. Man, that worked a little too well! I wasn't able to find any apples though. Later on, some kids would get candy. On Saturday, we went to a local park. Let's just say that nearly everything that could have gone wrong did.

Throughout the meeting, the childcare staff was asked to escort the kids to an from the main rooms to restrooms and other such places. As I took these kids to where they asked for, I kept on being asked, "is he/she yours?" by folks passing by. It seemed like such an innocent comment but it nearly brought me to tears. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't in the best frame of mind going into this weekend but these kids changed all of that.

As I was wiping away tears and tending to boo-boos, these kids instilled a new kind of hope within me. Better care should be taken to ensure that they each reach their fullest potential. It's unfortunate that some of these kids already carry their parents mishaps. Their innocence is being replaced by nonsense. I feel better equipped to act as their advocate because I gave myself the opportunity to watch them at play.