Last Sunday, most of the people in the world celebrated Mother’s Day.

And so did the Break Free Group!

And since our mission is to challenge ourselves and others to break free from the ordinary, we could not have an ordinary celebration, could we?

So here are some glimpses of what we did.

11am - almost all of us met in Bedok Bus Interchange- 9 of us gathered (Basti, the Red Nose German; Smiley Ovi from Nepal; the colorful Hungarian girls Ana Maria and Bogi, Big Heart Maggie from Hong Kong, High on Energy Isabel from Netherlando- Phillipines, Best Photographer in Singapore: Yunyu, Excited Miranda from China, and Romanian myself).

This was the biggest operation in Break Free history! So far…

11.10am- the last one of us, Yasmine the Happy Egyptian, calls: “Guys, can you come and help me carry the helium tank?” (yes! helium tank!! :))

Basti,  demonstrating self leadership, rushed to her help. Alone.

That proved to be a mistake as the tank was as almost as heavy as a real army tank. We needed three people to carry it to the place of the operation.

11.15am- after a brief “How do we actually open the helium tank?!?” session, , we were ready.

Ready to make balloons to give to Mothers! And to their children!

around 12am- we got reinforcements- Jacqueline Wong and her two lovely children came to our help (BTW, Jacqueline was kind enough to sponsor us with the helium for the operation! SO, BIG THANKS once again!)

Thrilled and enthusiastic, Daniel jumped in the action straight away. His first target, a young mother: “Hello! I love you! Will you marry me?” (talk about being direct!)

The answer came promptly: “I would my dear, but I already have 4 children!”

Not losing heart at all, Daniel just went on spreading love and putting smiles on a lot of people’s faces. And was the youngest Red Nose on the day!

around 1 pm- wherever you looked over the big Bedok Bus Interchange (which is almost as big as a National Stadium), you could spot helium balloons colouring the horizons. That was when, after a good 2 hours of intense but rewarding work, the Break Free group decided to break for lunch!

The outcomes after two hours: more than 400 balloons, 50 “I love you Mother” hand made cards and 50 origami flowers were given to young and not so young mothers and their smiling children

And the biggest satisfaction we got was the one of putting a BIG smile on a lot of people’s faces. Not matter of their age. (especially the old aunties smiles when getting a balloon or an origami flower were worth millions).

As well as challenging people’s mindsets. We heard a lot of comments like: How much do we need to pay for the balloons? What are you selling? What are you promoting?

And some of the people found it hard to believe that we had no sales intention. And that our purpose was to prove once again that it is easy to have fun while breaking free from the ordinary. And making other people smile in the process!

PS. You can find all of the pictures here!