Chillin' at the Youth Pavilion at FPAC 18

While not in the near future, I can say with certainity that I do definitely aspire to be a father some day.  With that in mind it was pretty cool visiting the Youth Pavilion at the 18th annual FPAC.  It's really interesting to think that some of the college aged participants of the first FPAC might have kids as old as the event itself who are then experiencing the event this year!  Talagang CRAZY!

Situated next to the children's playground at Point Fermin Park, a natural choice for their target demographic, the Youth Pavilion offered an outlet for the children of festival goers to release their energy in a positive burst of creativity and excitement; energy which might not necessarily be properly received next to the vendors selling their wares or food, bless those food vendors seriously.

Aside from the playground that is a normal fixture for the park, the Youth Pavillion was visited by some 50 to 60 children on Saturday alone and offered quite a few activities for the kids to partake in.  While I wasn't able to get a hold of the FPAC organizer for the Pavilion I was able to speak with the large staff of volunteers who held great interest in working with the children.  These volunteers led the kids in activities such as face painting, coloring pictures of people dressed up in various Philippine traditional outfits, dressing up in child sized folk costumes, as wells as other forms of creative expression.

One activity that caught my eye in particular was a graffiti sheet with the words "What does FPAC mean to you?"  Children wrote/drew various responses from "good food" to pictures of events, people, or food (yes I am hungry =D) they saw at the event. 

When I asked a volunteer about the graffiti sheet, she actually told me about one of the parents who took her children to the Youth Pavilion.  The mother had told her that she grew up in the MidWest and she didn't really have events like FPAC around her area growing up.  Because of this she feels highly compelled to take her children out to these types of gatherings in order to give them a slice of life she didn't necessarily have for herself.

While I wasn't at FPAC itself for that long I did enjoy taking a little bit of my day to visit the Youth Pavilion, and I do hope I'm someday blessed enough to bring my own children there as well.