On Saturday, the La Porte County Family YMCA held their annual Healthy Kids Day event. This event is meant to encourage kids to get active and get learning as well as promote healthy families.
There were lots of fun things for the kids to see and do like try out Zumba and cycling classes, get some yummy snacks, get some crafting done, and watch Tae Kwon Do demonstrations.
"Healthy Kids Day is a nationally recognized YMCA program," Joy Zigler, Marketing Director for the La Porte FAmily YMCA said. "It's about getting kids involved and being healthy whether it's with eating, activities, or anything else. Anything that we can do at the Y to help promote that, we'll do it. That's what it's all about."
Vendor booths were set up on the Shick gym as well as some cool bounce houses. Kids were given a bingo sheet upon entering the event and each vendor and activity that they stopped by initialed the bingo sheet. Later the sheets were taken in exchange for raffle tickets. At the end of the event tickets were drawn to win neat prizes like new bikes, free membership passes and more!
E.D.I.T.H Smoke House was also there, parked in front of the Y, to help kids learn about fire safety.
Studies indicate that kids who don't continue to be active and learn in the summer months can fall behind academically and gain weight twice as fast during summer than the school year. The solution is a fun summer camp.
In the lower level multi-purpose rooms at the Y, Kids were able to sign up for summer programs. Parents could partake in Camp 101 for Parents and Early Learning Academy 101 for Parents. This was meant to help them start thinking about the summer programs that the Y offers and how it will benefit their children.
"One of the main reasons for Healthy Kids Day is to promote our summer programs," Kyle Jeffers, Summer Camp Director for the La Porte County Family YMCA said. "This is important to be because I feel that it helps kids with their development. When I was a kid I went to summer camp and I don't know what I would have done throughout the summer without the camp. I believe that people should bring their kids to summer camp because it isn't babysitting, it's a great experience that the kids will love."