Forty preschoolers, fifty Palm Beach County Student Council members, fifteen parent volunteers, bounce houses, carnival games, pizza, and a scavenger hunt. What do all of these things have in common? They were all part of an incredible event that took place at Gumbo Limbo Pavilion on January 10th.

Every year, the Palm Beach County Student Council comes together to plan a county-wide project with a community service theme. Past projects have ranged from Habitat for Humanity and money collections, but this year's county co-presidents, Kaitlin Fallon and Dawn Friedman, decided to plan a more local project named "Operation Fun Day." The goal of "Operation Fun Day" is pretty self-explanatory...an all around fun day for underprivileged children in Palm Beach County.

The day started off at 10:00 A.M. when forty children from the Head Start Preschool walked off of the big yellow school bus. Even though they were a little nervous at first, the children warmed up to the day immediately after meeting their group leaders. About six preschoolers and one student council member made up each group, which stuck together all day to have an amazing time! The first stop of the day was the decoration table, where students were able to decorate their very own goody bag to put prizes in throughout the day. Next came a round of ten carnival games, including a cake walk and tic tac toss, and two bounce houses for the groups to enjoy. After each group participated in all ten carnival games and played in the bounce houses, the students had lunch including pizza, cotton candy, chips, drinks, and popcorn. For the last half hour of the day, teams competed in a very intense scavenger hunt! Group leaders informed the children of the first scavenger hunt item, and from then on the teams had to follow the clues on the back of their items until they found the last item...the treasure chest! Jupiter High School Student Government Association member Brie Sidman, led her group for the win. The day ended with mixed emotions around 1:00 P.M.. While the preschoolers and high school students alike were tired and ready to go home, nobody wanted to leave their new friends. The day was an all around great success.

The Palm Beach County Student Council would like to thank the following businesses and schools for helping to sponsor the event...Jupiter High School; West Boca High School; Friedman, Feldmesser, and Karpelis; Charles W. Hoffman, DMD; Royal Palm High School; Braman Motorcars; Lake Worth High School; Spanish River High School; Laf-A-Lot Entertainment; Dwyer High School; Publix; Papa John's; Commissioner Koons; Gordon & Doner, and Chili's Restaurant.

Dawn Friedman