Corporate Kids Events, an event childcare company that operates nationwide, collaborated with Strong Bonds to hold a shell event for the organization that aims to foster relationships within the military family. This event took place in the beautiful Blaine, Washington on April 30th to May 2nd. This is one of several events Strong Bonds will be holding this year and Corporate Kids Events is looking forward to be working with them throughout 2021.
Strong Bonds is a unit-based, chaplain-led program that assists commanders in building individual resiliency by strengthening the Army Family. The core mission of the Strong Bonds program is to increase individual Soldier and Family member readiness through relationship education and skills training. Strong Bonds is conducted in an offsite retreat format in order to maximize the training effect. The retreat or “get away” provides a fun, safe, and secure environment in which to address the impact of relocations, deployments, and military lifestyle stressors (Strong Bonds.org, 2021).
Corporate Kids Events gave Strong Bonds the opportunity for families to bring their children to the 3-day conference. While the parents participated in the adult training, Corporate Kids Events entertained the kids in another conference room to have their own super fun event with other military kids. With concerns of COVID-19 Strong Bonds and Corporate Kids Events took special care to ensure everyone’s safety including mandatory temperature checks daily upon entry, mandatory mask wearing and social distancing when possible. Corporate Kids Events also provided gloves, hand sanitizer and cleaning products to keep toys, games and surfaces disinfected and safe for everyone to use.
Corporate Kids Events hosted 8 children under age 8yrs old, managed by Senior National Program Manager, Julie Piper. Julie has been a part of the company for over 10 years. Four local staff, half of which have worked with us on previous event childcare programs, accompanied Julie to assist with the kids. Julie reported her favorite part of the kids camp was, “I loved watching the babies interact with each other.” One of the local staff members, Lia, said her favorite part of the event, “was the crafts, games and dancing.”
Each of the days had a different theme to keep things exciting for the kids including, Beach Day, Pirates and Western. For each theme Julie and the staff introduced games, crafts and activities specific to the particular theme. The most favorite activities were the fun games that Julie created around pirates and the beach ball toss. Games help kids become confident in social settings, foster team work and also allows them to think creatively. Because the kids were of a younger age group for this program, the goal was to keep the kids happy and entertained so the parents could finish their sessions without interruption.
A funny thing that happened during the event childcare program was with a 7-year old that was having a difficult time leaving Mom and Dad and did not want to be there with the kids camp group and staff. By the 3rd session (out of 4), he said, “Miss Julie, if this is a dream, it’s the best dream ever!” shared Julie. How cute!
Well, there you have it, another successful and fun conference childcare event complete!
The Strong Bonds event was held at the Semiahmoo Lodge in Blaine, Washington, April 30th-May 2nd, 2021 with 8 child campers. You can find out more about Strong Bonds by visiting their website (www.strongbonds.org).
We look forward to hosting future conference childcare programs with Strong Bonds in the future, thanks for your trust in Corporate Kids Events!
Corporate Kids Events, or CKE, has been providing conference childcare since 1998. We organize and run signature programs for meetings, conferences and gatherings in a COVID safe environment nationally. We are experts in managing large groups of children and have experience in a wide variety of program types to suit your needs. Feel free to visit our website anytime for more information (www.conferencechildcare.com).