'Joy FM Family Party in the Park' brings life to Legon Botanical Gardens

To say the 2019 edition of the Joy FM Family Party in the Park was exciting would be an understatement.

The fun-filled Christmas outing program, which came off at Accra’s lush Legon Botanical Gardens saw patrons engaging in numerous competitions and fun activities.

Kids had their faces painted, others joined the queue to receive gifts from the Joy Santa Clause and later joined their parents to jam to the highlife band Kwan Pa and rapper Edem's back-to-back hit songs when he took the stage.

The Cooking competition also featured some of Joy FM’s on-air personalities including host of DriveTime, Lexis Bill, Sammy Forson, host of the Overdrive and Weekend City Show and Evans Mensah; host of Top Story and Ghana Connect.

The event held annually to help foster bonds among family as the Christmas holiday approaches, officially began an hour later than the initial set time.

However, the delay did not dampen the spirits of patrons who had come in to party, compete for prizes, make friends, have fun and spend quality time with their family.

Some of Joy FM’s DJs including DJ Bridash, DJ Wobete and Ignatious Agyabeng, host of Country Land on Sunday, took turns on the turntable to play hits of patrons’ favourite musicians.

Other activities held included a Jollof festival, Nine lessons and carol, sporting activities hosted by Sammy Yirenkyi, head of productions at Asempa and many more.

Sammy Forson, host of the Weekend City Show on Joy FM was the first host. He took his time to welcome and introduce patrons to some of the activities that would take place in the course of the day.

Parents began registering their families for some of the competitions including sack race competition, musical chairs, treasure hunt, cooking competition, nine lessons and carols among others.

While registration was ongoing some kids had already joined their friends on the bouncy castles and the balloon climbs.

DJ Black and Nathaniel Attoh took over from Sammy and moderated the first game musical chairs.

Sammy Forson presents Dolait Yogurt to the winner of the musical chairs

The dancing competition was next.
Michelle, Selma, Nana Yaa, Marian, Dictus, Lois, Larissa, Linda, Doreen and Nana K were the contestants in this dance challenge.

Winners were chosen by the patrons. Contestants who were unable to make it to the final stage were be given souvenirs from Dolait Yoghurt.

The nine lessons and carol took over from the dancing competition. Families are aiming for the title of ultimate champion in this competition. In the spirit of Christmas they shared lessons from the bible and demonstrated their vocal skills by singing together for the audience. This competition was hosted by Lexis Bill.

Popular Highlife band Kwam Pa then proceeded to entertain patrons with some of their famous Christmas songs.

While the band was entertaining the crowd, patrons were also asked to be on the lookout for treasures hidden around the pack. Patrons won hampers from Vodafone in the Treasure Hunt competition.

Meanwhile, Santa Klaus was already seated and kids had queued up to greet him, take pictures and earn themselves a gift.

The sack race competition was the next activity on the line. After the kids competed, mothers also took their turn to compete against each other for the Vodafone prize.

Fastest fingers game took over after the sack race ended, hence patrons had no time to be bored at this year’s Family Party in the Park.

With this game, patrons are tasked to identify a body part as fast as possible when its mentioned. Parents were competing to win a voucher to the Labadi Beach hotel.

On the other hand JoyNews’ Evans Mensah, Lexis Bill, Sammy Forson and others were trying to put their best touches to their versions of Jollof rice.

Evans prepared the Braised Journalistic Jollof, Lexis the Copatetic Jollof and Cardi B khebab, Sammy Forson and his team also prepared what he calls Sam’s Happy Jollof with chicken. According to him, when you eat the Jollof, you become happy. The final contestant Akwasi Boakye also prepared the Just Kill It Jollof.

Rapper Edem came later to interact with patrons before his performance.