Fun for family day
Children's First Centre celebrates with food and games
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, May 22, 2014
INUVIK
There might have been no better way than a barbecue to celebrate International Family Day in Inuvik.
Naomi Pearce, left, and Patricia Davison, the executive director of the Children First Society, helped celebrate International Family Day May 15. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
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Dozens of people flocked to the Children's First Centre during the afternoon of May 15 for a round of free food sandwiched along with fun and games to celebrate the day.
"It's International Family Day, so we've invited the community to come and celebrate with us with some activities," said Patricia Davison, the executive director of the new centre, which hasn't been open for a year yet.
"It's a day to recognize the importance of families, and families come in many different shapes and sizes and makeups," she continued. "It's just all about celebrating that connection to other people."
As she spoke, there were a number of activities happening around the property.
"So the children are playing the Hokey-Pokey over there, and people are enjoying hamburgers and hot dogs and there's fish and soup over there and all kinds of other good food," Davison said.
"We sent out notices to the community and I have no idea of how many people have been here, to be honest. We've had a lot of people come and go, and I haven't been keeping track."
The barbecue and games weren't the only event marking the day and the week. Davison said on May 19 there was an event featuring story-telling by elders and there was another event scheduled for May 17 at the Inuvik Youth Centre as well.
"This is very nice," said Sandra Suliman, one of the parents attending the event. "I'd like to see them do something like this annually.
"It's something for everyone across the community and for the kids too," she added.
Those events earlier in the week were organized by Heather Wheating of the Inuvik Healthy Families program.
"It's something we started talking about several months ago," she explained. "It was just the idea of wanting to recognize that families are everywhere around the world.
"We had an International Family Day event on Monday, and it was great with the story-telling, the drummer and singer. It was a chance for people to talk about family stories and the importance of being able to carry on things we remember and how do we want our families to remember us.
"It's our hope that people will think about families and the big picture," said Wheating.
