An interactive experience geared toward raising awareness and compassion for kids growing up in developing world set down for the weekend in Falls Township.
The Compassion Experience, a small part of the Compassion nonprofit which works worldwide to pull kids out of poverty, settled in at Restoration Church off Pinewood Drive in Levittown Friday through Monday. The experience brought attendees through two immersive stories. Each story features a real person from a developing nation that Compassion helped. Jey, from Kenya, and Yanelly, from Dominican Republic, took attendees through the trouble of their childhood.
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The tour goes to great lengths and recreates conditions that the kids grew up in to bring attendees fully into the experience. A full narration of the ordeal leads attendees through the lives of the two natives of the developing countries with the hopes that they will want to sponsor a child by the end of the experience.
Throughout the weekend, about 75 children found sponsors because of the Levittown event, Compassion workers told LevittownNow.com.
“It’s one way to bring the cities here instead of bringing all of these people to the cities,” explained Blake Hunter, a Compassion employee who travels with the experience.
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According to Hunter, there are two parts of sponsoring a child through Compassion: $38 every month and a written correspondence.
“I think it really opens up people’s eyes,” Hunter said.
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The church has had a long-term partnership with Compassion. Many members at the church sponsor kids from Bolivia, including three kids sponsored by pastor Ross Manders’ family.
“We just really want to build awareness in our community,” Manders said.
The weekend event was the first time that Manders has experienced the event, but he has seen the conditions first hand when he traveled to Bolivia last year.
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“I thought it was very well done,” Manders said of the event.
“We were really eager and excited when they decided to come to Restoration Church,” he explained.
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Attendees came from all over the region, including one family from Huntington Valley.
The next event in Pennsylvania will be held in mid-September in York County.
