Corporate Kids Events, a nationwide conference childcare company based out of California, teamed up 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 wintery Vail, Colorado for February 18th-20th. 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 whisked the kids off to another room to have their own fun conference childcare program focused on fun! 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 14 children in the infant to school age groups managed by Debbie Purcell, one of our National Program Managers. Debbie was accompanied by 5 local staff all of whom very much enjoyed working and interacting with the kids. Debbie reported her favorite part of the kids camp was, “that she loved holding the baby twins.” One of the local staff members, Ana, also, “ loved playing with the babies.” For this camp, around 1/3 of the attendees were babies. 
Each of the days had a different theme to keep things exciting for the kids including, Beach Day, Pirates and Wild Wild West. For each theme Debbie and the staff introduced games, crafts and activities specific to the particular theme. The most favourite activities were decorating the craft take home bags with beads and sequins and also when one of the staff members played music for the kids for games like duck-duck-goose and musical chairs. The kids had the unique opportunity to in that a staff member brought an instrument to play! Music ignites all areas of child development and skills for school readiness, including intellectual, social-emotional, motor, language, and overall literacy. It also helps the body and mind work together and was just an overall fun extra the kids got to enjoy in Vail.
The mother of the twins previously mentioned, Julia, reported, “Debbie and her team were absolutely wonderful! I have twin daughters who are 6 months old and up until last weekend at the Strong Bonds Marriage Retreat in Vail, Colorado, I had never had anyone watch them, except for my husband. Debbie made me feel so much better and allowed me to ask any questions I’d like about the care my daughters would be receiving. I felt totally at peace leaving them with her and her team during the retreat.”
Well, there you have it, another successful and fun conference childcare event complete!
The Strong Bonds event was held at the Grand Hyatt in Vail, Colorado, February 18th-20th with 14 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).