INNISFAIL –From yoga stretching to face painting to petting cute critters, the children of town embraced fun and joy at the second annual Family Festival.
The free four-hour event at the Innisfail and District Historical Village on Sept. 9 attracted close to 200 parents and children on a busy weekend that also saw hundreds more attend other highly publicized events, like the Weekend of Wheels and the Innisfail Triathlon.
“That was pretty cool considering there was so much going on during the weekend,” said Reshann Butts, chairperson of Envision Children First, a coalition of six Innisfail family social groups that hosted the festival. “We had about that many last year and the parents and children really enjoyed it, so we will be doing it again next year for sure.”
The festival, which began at 10 a.m. and ran until 2 p.m., also featured a puppet show, a performance by Joy's School of Dance, old-fashioned games like pillow sack races, egg on a spoon, and washer tosses in a box. There was also pop-up adventure stations, a scavenger hunt and free food. As well, organizers brought the young a new version of the successful cardboard box challenge that was introduced to children by the coalition last February.
“We brought a whole bunch of cardboard boxes again and added different types of construction materials, nuts and bolts and sticks and straws, different things to connect things together,” said Butts, who is also the coordinator of the Innisfail Family Day Home Society. “We had a big grassy area to do that. Being outside, it added a different dynamic because it was windy.”
Most importantly, the special day for local children was designed to fit the mandate of provincially funded coalitions, including Innisfail's Envision Children First, to help children develop the five developmental domains of social competence, language and thinking skills, physical health and well- being, social and emotional, communication and general knowledge.
“We are (FCSS) grant funded and our whole purpose with the grant is to try to increase developmental domains with children from zero to five so when they hit kindergarten they have more kindergarten readiness skills,” said Butts. “We want to increase parenting engagement with children so they are spending time playing with their children, so they are not sending them to a program that is not parented.”
She said the success of this year's fall Family Festival will probably lead to a bigger and better event in the spring, which was held this year but on a much smaller scale.
“The kids were busy having fun. They got little prizes for some of the games they played. They got their faces painted. They got to bring home a stress ball that they made,” said Butts. “There were lots of smiles and laughter.”
Reshann Butts, chairperson of Envision Children First
"We want to increase parenting engagement with children so they are spending time playing with their children so they are not sending them to a program that is not parented."
