The Sun Comes Out for Portage YMCA’s Annual Healthy Kids Day

The Sun Comes Out for Portage YMCA’s Annual Healthy Kids Day

Health met fun at Portage YMCA’s annual Healthy Kids Day this Saturday. With free health screenings, bouncy houses, snow cones, and a multitude of booths, members of the Portage community, no matter what age, were able to enjoy their time learning about a healthy lifestyle.

Having been with the YMCA for eight years, CEO Amber Alexander said, “We do Healthy Kids Day every year. Every year, what I see from this event is the opportunity for the community to come together and for all the families in the community to see all the different wellness opportunities they have to support them. Every year it gets bigger and better and we’re lucky to partner with Saint Mary’s and Danny in particular.”

As Alexander mentioned, the YMCA partnered with Saint Mary’s Medical Center to expand the the opportunities the event provides. With similar core values and a desire to fight the childhood obesity epidemic, the partnership was an easy one to form.

“Over the last few decades, there has been an increase in portion sizes of foods, expansions of drive-thrus, and a trend of supersizing everything,” said Danny Gonzalez, Saint Mary’s Health and Wellness Coordinator. What we’re seeing is kids are gaining weight and so we’re targeting obesity at Saint Mary’s. We want to focus on heart disease and diabetes. We want to make sure that we get involved in any way possible. We want to get the word out and try to prevent these things from occurring early on.”

Healthy Kids Day had so many things for families to do, with booths and bouncy houses inside and physical activities out under the sun. Companies such as Chick-fil-A and Jacob’s Ladder Pediatric Rehabilitation Center were at the YMCA to promote their own ideas on a healthy lifestyle. T-Mobile also had a booth at the event, sharing the numerous apps they provide for healthy living. Walmart and Meijer donated bicycles that were raffled off as well.

Juleen Enfantis, mother of four children ranging two to nine years of age, said “We’re already members of the YMCA, but I didn’t know about their swim classes until the event today. It was nice that the vendor was out here talking about it. The kids always want to come with us so it’s nice to have them participating with us outside.”

Registrations for the YMCA’s summer camp programs opened at Healthy Kids Day. New to 2016 is a program held at Lake Station Riverview Park involving daily archery, canoeing, and swimming.

“Lifelong friendships come from these camps,” said C.C. Cayetano, Associate Branch Director. “Most of our staff are summer campers themselves. They grew up through the program and now their first job will be with us.”

Click here to see more pictures of the fun!

Kids and adults alike were clad in “Zoe for President” stickers as they enjoyed activities. Not to be mistaken for a member of the upcoming election, Zoe is the face of the YMCA’s annual campaign for scholarship funds.

“Zoe is a one-year-old who is running for president in about 50 years,” said campaign overseer Jan Zurek. “She might also grow up to be a firefighter, a doctor, or a YMCA employee. She represents the potential that the YMCA sees in all of the children that come through our doors that have the opportunity to receive support in a nurturing environment. Here, we can instill our five core values of respect, responsibility, caring, honesty, and faith.”

The Portage YMCA pulled out all the stops Saturday afternoon to ensure that their community finds it fun and manageable to live a healthy life.