Bacon County Family Connection Hosts 30th Annual Day of the Child
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Bacon County Family Connection celebrated its 30th Annual Day of the Child event this year. Over the past three decades, the event has become one of Bacon County’s most popular events for families.
Bacon County Family Connection Coordinator Laura Crozier said the event was conceived as “a resource fair disguised as a kids’ event” by the Collaborative’s first-ever coordinator, Ron Lhotte. “He knew if you provided a free day of fun for the community’s children, the adults would follow,” explained Crozier.
Día del Niño, or Day of the Child, is an international holiday founded in Mexico that recognizes the special role young people play in society. Bacon County Family Connection’s celebration has been held in Alma’s downtown Goldwasser Park since its inception and features free food, fun activities and games, prizes, and access to resources and information for families.
“The large attendance offers a wonderful means to distribute disaster preparedness information to children and adults,” said Jackie Shoemaker, Red Cross South Central Georgia Chapter executive director. “Since many community leaders are in attendance, we also have an increased opportunity to promote and share Red Cross services available in Bacon County.”
Family Connection’s partners are the backbone of the event. Each year, between 30 and 45 partners—including local government, churches, schools, businesses, state and private agencies, and other organizations—provides a free activity, game, or giveaway for the kids.
“Our partners literally are the event—and many have of them been coming to Day of the Child since the very beginning,” said Crozier. “While the children are having fun at the booth, partners have the opportunity to talk with adults about their services.”
When Crozier inherited the long-standing event in 2021, she developed a theme each year to help Family Connection and participating partners come up with fresh ideas for booths and activities.
“The theme also helps me engage new partners,” Crozier said. “For example, when our theme was sports two years ago, I recruited the hospital to lead a dancercize class and the Bacon County High School wrestling team to host a demonstration, and the Alma Bacon County Recreation Department participated for the first time in years.”
To celebrate the event’s milestone anniversary in 2025, Family Connection hosted a “Wet and Wild” themed event featuring water slides, sprinklers, wading pools, water games, splash balls, and a Alma-Bacon County Fire Department ladder truck spraying water from high above.
“The kids loved it, especially the fire truck,” said Crozier. “It was a warm, sunny day and the kids stayed wet from the time they got there.”
Some notable Day of the Child activities through the past three decades have included:
• a bike giveaway provided by the Bacon County Sheriff’s Office,
• a dunking booth manned by the Alma Police Department,
• live animals from General Coffee State Park and Coffee Cause for Pause,
• a hands-on, kid-friendly archery simulator brought by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and
• a “Teddy Bear Clinic” manned by Bacon County Hospital Staff.
The event helps Family Connection work toward the goal of increasing access to needed resources and services to children and families in Bacon County, where 31.1% of children live in poverty, compared to 18.8% in Georgia. Additionally, 38.9% of families, with children, live with annual incomes less than 150% of the federal poverty threshold, compared to 25.1% in Georgia.
“Our annual plan focuses on partnering with community organizations to coordinate programs and services to improve family stability through better access to resources in the community,” said Crozier.
Contact:
Krystin Dean
GaFCP Communications Specialist
706-897-4711
krystin@gafcp.org
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