By: Jessica Kenton, RASP Assistant Director
On a cold Tuesday afternoon, we began setting up for our first-ever valentine’s DIY parent night. We didn’t know what to expect since this was our first event vs. our October Lights On Afterschool event we’ve had for 6 years with more than 200 attendees and continues to grow! The idea came across when RASP director, Karla Haugen, asked me, assistant director, Jessica Kenton, for any creative ideas for her kids' valentine's boxes that she needed to help them make.
As a parent, Karla knows how hard it can be to find the time to work, clean, make dinner and find the time to do art projects, like valentine’s boxes for school. So we decided, why not host an event to make parents' lives easier? That way, parents, students, and staff can interact with the kiddos with free supplies and help both parents and students get some creative time together. It’s an excellent opportunity for family engagement and getting to know our parents a little better. We want them to know that we really care about the program, students, and parents. At our parent’s board meeting in December, we brought up the idea, and included with our vision board on what we wanted for the event, and they loved it!
So I set out to find a new partner to help with the cost, and Endurance Lift solutions were very generous to donate the supplies and snacks for this event. The snacks included every kid's dream! A Sweets charcuterie board, including cupcakes, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, twizzlers, A LOT of variety of heart-shaped candies, and more! Of course, we needed a healthy board along with that! We also had a veggie board with heart cutouts of cucumbers, carrots, strawberries, blackberries, and heart-shaped pretzels.
We asked the district and parents for box donations, which also helped a lot with the cost! The district and parents did not disappoint, as we will still have empty boxes sitting in our office. Supplies included everything from pipe cleaners, dinosaurs, butcher paper, heart-shaped papers, and more! We even ran out of room on the tables as parents started to move to the floor. That’s when the creativity really started to ignite! Some boxes that stuck out were a Taylor Swift album, including all of the new songs on her album, a little green tractor, and a basketball court!
The event turned out great, and we had 102 students and families in attendance. Our partner, Endurance lift solutions, Patrick Kenton, even came by to check out the event and help clean up. We plan to continue developing more ideas so this parent night can be even bigger next year.