The children loved their weekly structured Zoom In calls over the first lockdown. These ended when school resumed in September, but a one-off Zoom In event took place on Halloween, during the half-term holiday. The whole Zoom In team worked together to make the call fun for the children. Ellen took it a magical step further and delivered pumpkins and carrot cake to every household! They had homework; to carve their pumpkins in time for the call. The children and parents were absolutely delighted, some of them never having heard of Halloween before.

The carrot cake was accompanied by birthday candles, because this bit was in celebration of the Drop-In’s third birthday. The children all lit and blew out their candles at the same time and enjoyed the cake together.

As well as having the cake and showing off their pumpkin creations, there were lots of other activities during the call including an obligatory quiz, which the kids love so much.

What a fantastic occasion for the children and the Zoom In team! Thank you for making it so magical for them Ellen. Some Christmas Zoom events are currently being planned…

The photo is of a very accomplished carving by a family who had never encountered Halloween before. A parent said, “that’s our first pumpkin 🎃😊 Before that we didn’t know what pumpkins and Halloween were. The kids are very happy with the pumpkin 😁 [Child’s name] said to me, please mum tonight can we do this pumpkin? And then we together made it 🎃🤗”