Who could not have fun filling bags for PLAY! We are strong believers in the value of play and especially unplugged, active play! In our current pandemic state, many children and families are more restricted in their activities and may be dealing with the added pressure of limited or reduced income so our project was to target such children with a surprise of a bag of “play”.
We had a contact at the North Okanagan Youth & Family Services (NOYFSS) and asked if they could help us distribute our play sacs. They were very supportive and gave us a list with 18 families with children ranging in ages from 2 months to 14 years. We also identified one other single mom dealing with huge medical issues and has two young boys. In total, we distributed our “play sacs” to 19 families – 21 boys and 15 girls. Although our original plan was to do 20 individual bags, we decided to stretch our resources and make these bags for all the children identified by NOYFSS (many of these families had 2, 3 and 4 children). We also had support from a local business: Vernon Teach & Learn who gave us the bags and a toy for each one. We included a one-pager with 25 Ideas for Outside Play during Covid-19 Times.
Because of confidentiality, we had to drop 18 bags at the NOYFSS office for them to distribute, but the appreciation and gratitude that they conveyed to us made our day for sure! But you can feel the excitement of checking out the play sac by these two young boys!
Thank you to the Responsive Small Neighbourhood Grants program for the funding to make this project come alive!
Phyllis & Janice, the Play Sac Ninjas
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