Tots program co-ordinator is passionate about play
From gardening to crafts, Erin Porter loves her job
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, July 13, 2015
ENTERPRISE
With three young children of her own, Erin Porter is a busy woman.
However, she takes many more children under her wing as leader of the hamlet's Tots program - it's a parent and child drop-in offered every weekday morning from 10 a.m. to noon at the Enterprise Community Centre that she has co-ordinated for over two years.
"I like being around the kids. I love doing crafts - I mean I love finding stuff to do with my own kids, it's fun and easy to do with all the kids," she said, adding children who join Tots must be accompanied by a parent, grandparent, guardian or babysitter.
"It's a drop-in centre, not a drop-off centre."
Porter offers crafts, reading circles, dress-up, healthy snacks, singing and dancing, occasional movie days and more.
"We did a craft where they made a car out of a cardboard box," Porter said.
"So we had a drive-in movie theatre where we had popcorn and they sat in their cars."
Last year, she even had the children plant a plot at the community garden in Enterprise.
"We went once a week, all of us, and watered it," she said, adding she plans to garden with the children this year as well.
The Tots program is designed for children aged up to about five years and their parents.
Porter said that means at least 10 children, which is roughly about 10 per cent of Enterprise's 100 or so residents.
She said it can be an issue with getting the children and parents out for the program.
"I would love to see it better used," she said.
"I don't think it's a lack of programming. I've talked to pretty much everyone in our community who has the potential to come and they like what I've been doing."
Porter has also conducted her own little survey to determine what parents want to see in the program, and she welcomes suggestions.
"I can't expect 10 kids every single day, but in the summertime that will be quite different," she said.
"We will get quite a few more out just because it's easier to come out."
In order to make Tots more accessible to families, Porter is considering alternating the program between the morning and the afternoon.
"Not every mom can come out in the morning," she said.
"Some prefer the afternoon, some prefer the morning. So I would like to alternate, which is something we're going to look at."
That being said, all of Enterprise's young children and a parent have attended the Tots program at least once.
"There's always three," Porter quipped with a laugh, referring to her three boys aged two, four and five.
"They come with me."
There is no charge to take part of Tots, which is funded by the Healthy Children's Initiative of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.
The 31-year-old Porter, who was born in British Columbia but grew up in New Brunswick, has lived in the North for almost four years.
Aside from her part-time job with the Tots program, she is also a mobile hairstylist serving Enterprise and Hay River.
Porter said the Tots program is not a play school that is structured to get children ready for kindergarten.
"It's more just learning through play, interacting with people," she explained, adding it's also a good way for children and their parents to spend time together.
