Children First Day took place on Saturday. The event was hosted by the WHSV station and held at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg.
With the parking lots completely full, the event is still going strong after 14 years. The event not only has booths both inside and outside of the University Commons at EMU, but it also has horse and carriage rides for all the children.
“About five or six years ago, the event was rained out, so we needed a place that we could hold it rain or shine, and Eastern Mennonite is the perfect place for it,” said WHSV general manager Tracey Jones.
Volunteers from Wal-Mart donated their time on Friday to set up and Saturday during the actual event and Wal-Mart will make a donation of $5,000, which will go towards paying for the use of EMU’s facility and cleaning up afterwards.
The event was completely free for the children and their families. “Children First wanted to put on a free event for kids and give them a variety of things to do while they are here both educational and purely fun,” said Jones.
Children First Day included performances going on throughout the afternoon by the Dayton Dazzlers, JMU cheerleaders, Ronald McDonald, and Miss Virginia, among others. The event also included feeding cows, balloons, ring toss, a dunking booth and the Harrisonburg Fire Department was even there giving tours of the fire trucks to the children.
There were booths set up for games with prizes as well as painting. An assortment of food was also provided and free for the participants.
For more information on Children First, please visit www.whsv.com/childrenfirst.
Story by Jenny Hypes. Jenny can be reached at [email protected].
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