Books Blocks and Balls Comes to Northern Kent!

We took our Books, Blocks & Balls Event on the road to Northern Kent County! Sparta Baptist Church graciously allowed us to utilize their space for this amazing drive-thru community event. Our first cars started to line up approximately 45 minutes before the event was scheduled to start. Families were able to receive essential needs of play bags from the Great Start Collaborative & Great Start Parent Coalition, which consisted of balls, playdough, scissors and more to help encourage play. There were also several community partners on site handing out amazing goodies including Kent District Library, Help Me Grow, D.A. Blodgett, Head Start for Kent County, Health Net of West Michigan and Great Start to Quality.

One highlight of the event were the kits handed out by the Kent District Library (KDL). KDL attended the event with the KDL book mobile which was fully equipped with music and the video screen playing a video related to the book Potato Pants, by Lauren Keller. An autographed copy of the book was provided to all the families who attended the event.

The event served 99 adults and 181 children. Based on our survey results 77% of the parents surveyed were not aware of the Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), so this was a great event to not only provide parents with items to encourage play, but to also bring awareness to the ASQ. We had families complete the ASQ as a result of this event as well!

In addition to the great resources provided to families, we were also able to raffle off a gift basket of goodies donated by The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum, Great Start to Quality and the Great Start Collaborative/Great Start Parent Coalition.

Parents were very appreciative of the items they received for their children and the event being hosted in Northern Kent County.

GREAT START COLLABORATIVE KENT COUNTY

Funding from the Office of Great Start within the Michigan Department of Education supports the implementation of Great Start.