Play is a key component in the healthy development of young children. For the first time in many years, Fairytale Town was home to a health and wellness festival, thanks to the generosity of our health care partner, Sutter Children’s Center.

Our organizations worked together over several months to determine the activities that would be valuable to our audience, and the partners we could bring in to offer information and guidance to children and families – in a playful way. Height and weight checks, dental screenings, and information on exercise, nutrition, diabetes, autism, education opportunities, day care, child abuse prevention and health insurance are samples of the topics the festival covered.

The “smoothie bike”

The Sutter Children’s Center Wellness Festival was held on Saturday, April 13. Children learned about nutrition and healthy eating by making a fruit smoothie while riding a bicycle and planting vegetable seeds in medical gloves to take home to start a garden. They learned about the importance of physical exercise while dancing on stage, navigating through an obstacle course, and getting training on how to run properly. While watching a live theater performance of plays written by youth, younger children learned about productive ways to spend leisure time. They learned about the importance of taking care of their bodies while getting height and weight checks and dental screenings by medical professionals.

More than 25 community organizations worked with us on the wellness festival, in addition to Sutter Children’s Center, and nearly 5,000 people attended the one-day program. We received such positive responses from both our audience and partners that we are looking to do it again next spring.

It was a good day of healthy play and learning at Fairytale Town. All who participated were inspired to continue playing – not just for fun, but for our health and well-being too!