It was a Christmas wonderland at the Brambleton Town center over the weekend and Indy Serves students worked to bring the event to life as they made ornaments from 11am-4pm Sunday.
“We wanted to help spread the holiday joy and just make kids feel happy because recently a lot of kids haven’t been able to enjoy a lot of holiday things because of COVID in the past few years. So, we really just wanted to make up for that,” said Sabina Borjes, 16, an Independence Junior who is a member of Indy Serves.
There were many tables at the event, such as making smores and spinning a wheel for prizes. The event was crowded with children in Christmas hats and marshmallow covered faces.
“I just really wanted to make kids smile, you know?” Borjes continued. “Because my mom has all these ornaments that I made from when I was like five and I wanted other kids to be able to experience that too and have that memory to look back on once they’re older.”
Indy Serves was mainly at the Christmas ornaments decoration station, with numerous crafts at the station, such as glitter glue, markers, stickers, gems, and glitter. The kids were free to make whatever they wanted, and Indy Serves helped them put the string on the ornament so the kids could hang it on their tree.
“Some members brought candy canes to give out to the children after they were finished making their ornaments. Some of us brought materials like markers, glitter, glitter glue, gems, and then stickers. I brought some markers, glue, glitter glue, and then some gems,” Borjes said.
The event was a major success, not only because of the smiles on the faces of the children in attendance, but also because the memories they are sure to recall for years to come.
“For me, it’s about spending time with family and, like I said before, spreading joy and just making people happy. Like, it’s about the memories that come with it, you know?”
