Children look forward to birthday parties with great anticipation. It is a joyous occasion with delicious cakes, birthday balloons in all shapes and sizes, new clothes and often, themed décor. Their parents and guardians do everything in their power to make it memorable, planning it ahead to make their wishes come true.
However, if the occasion is marred by tragedy, the experience can be traumatic. There was an article in the news last week about a birthday celebration that turned tragic in an apartment complex, following the explosion of a bunch of helium balloons. This happened at a children’s birthday party, injuring two children and causing terror all around. The children were rushed to the hospital to be treated for burn injuries. The helium balloons ordered for the party are suspected to have been filled with the much cheaper and highly flammable hydrogen. Helium is an inert gas and considered pricier compared to hydrogen and LPG which are cheaper, but highly inflammable.
ADDA app for planning
Did you know that you can use your ADDA app for planning celebrations and to ensure that birthday celebrations are safe and happy? Here are some ways you can use ADDA app:
ADDA’s Buzzar Feature
- Find Reliable Event Managers: Birthdays are marked by the all-important cake, refreshments, themed decorations, balloons, return gifts and games, entertainers, clowns, bouncy castles, all bound together by laughter. Use your ADDA’s BUZZAR to locate vendors and event managers who have been properly vetted and reviewed by fellow apartment residents across your area.
- Find Food Caterers: Order your food only from approved caterers via Buzzar on your ADDA.
ADDA’s Conversation Feature
Discuss with other apartment residents to find out their experience, share tips, do’s and don’ts via the Conversations feature. You can also use this feature for gathering feedback on caterers and event managers from fellow residents.
Facility Booking
If you want to use any of your apartment’s facilities for the birthday party celebrations, then you can easily do it through ADDA. It takes just a few clicks to see availability and book. You can also make payments both through app and website to confirm your booking.
ADDA’s Albums
Do not forget to share pictures of the celebrations using the Albums.
Other Safety Precautions to keep in mind:
- Balloons: Since balloons are in the news and no child can imagine a birthday party without an abundance of balloons, do your due diligence before hiring a balloon vendor. If there is any way to check if your balloon vendor can guarantee that the balloons are filled only with Helium, get it. If not, opt for ordinary balloons.
- Manage food safety: Summer birthday parties are often held on lawns with live cooking, barbeques and grills. Make sure adequate safety precautions are in place by keeping young children and pets away from the cooking area.
- Find an appropriate venue: Make sure your birthday party venue has reasonably high ceilings. One of the reasons the balloons exploded at the party in the news was because of low ceilings, combined with the light bulbs without covers. If you plan to hold the party inside your apartment, make space by moving furniture out of the way and creating as much open space as possible for children to move around. Chairs pushed against the wall can be used as seating.
- Careful with the candles: Avoid multiple candles on the birthday cake, instead opting for no candles or just one number candle. Ensure that there are no balloons in the vicinity of the birthday cake to eliminate the possibility of an accident. All it takes is one tiny flame to inadvertently set off a fire.
- Secure common areas: Ensure that common areas around the apartment complex such as the pool, storage rooms, gyms and laundry facility, if any, can be accessed only by authorized personnel. Swimming pools can especially be a hazard if there are small children around. Keep the party away from the pool area.
As a rule, parents take utmost care to ensure that their child’s birthday party is memorable, but accidents can happen and it is better to be safe than sorry by being prepared.
Login to your ADDA now and share this article with your neighbors.
If you are not a part of your apartment’s ADDA yet, then join now! It’s Easy! Visit www.apartmentadda.com, or download the app from here, search for your apartment and join!
If your Apartment complex / housing society is still not online on ADDA, you can create one absolutely free on www.apartmentadda.com.
ADDA is the essential app for every apartment resident!
– By Vidya Sury
She loves being an apartment dweller and showing her diabetes who’s boss.
