Festival of Sand 2010

Firstly, I would like to take this time to recognize and thank the inventor of the poncho, as the morning of Festival of Sand kicked off with a soggy start. That rain didn't discourage the teams sculpting their celebration themed designs. To honor Kids on the Block's 25th birthday, some teams chose a birthday route, while others like Sportsmanship Award winner, Old Union School played off another popular party--the very merry un-birthday celebration from Alice in Wonderland.

Winner of the sculpting competition, Briarwood Elementary, honored the 25th birthday celebration with a huge cake, peeking presents, and a great big gift. A recent addition to the rules allows teams to include a single prop to accent their sculptures. Briarwood included a colorful birthday banner. Approaching the sculpture, visitors felt like they were walking into a giant party on a dazzling tiled floor. It's just too bad that giant cake was not edible! Perhaps there will be a celebration featuring an enormous cake in the not so distant future...

And the Winner Is...

Everyone! Well, in the sense that if you were at Festival of Sand Friday, you came out a winner in one sense or another. Let's break down the official winners:

Spirit Award: Bristow Elementary
3rd Place: Potter Gray Elementary
2nd Place: Briarwood Elementary
1st Place: St. Joseph School (pictured)
Bowling Green Choice: Potter Gray Elementary

Sponsorships and donations helped Kids on the Block raise money necessary to keep programming free of charge in the local area. So as I said, everyone's a winner!
Be sure to check out all the photos and become a fan at our facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/South-Central-Kentucky-Kids-on-the-Block-Inc/44278941743?ref=nf

Hear Us, See Us, Read About Us!

Everything is moving at a break-neck pace, you know, with planning 2 fundraisers. Prep for Festival of Sand is about to wrap up--the big event is next Friday! Then Twilight Thunder Cruise pops in 3 weeks later on the 3rd of October. We've been busy doing some publicity for the events. If you listen to D93 or SAM 100.7 here in Bowling Green, you'll hear the PSA we produced for Festival of Sand. You might also catch us on WNKY for interviews or the video PSA. Wait, there's more! Check out the write-up about Festival of Sand on the SOKY Happenings issue for this month. And, if we hadn't hit every media outlet just yet, you can always find pictures and write ups here and on Facebook.
We're excited for the big Festival of Sand. Teams have some really creative designs for the giant sculptures. There's a nice little buzz in the air as teams are competing for prize money this time around. It will be a day of fun and games. I have to say that I'm excited about the music this year, too. I've sunk a good deal of energy into making the playlist rock for everyone! So what are your plans Friday, September 11th?

Chattanooga Bound

With the help of grant funding, we will be travelling to train and network with the Chattanooga Kids on the Block troupe. The annual training has been downscaled considerably due to budget cuts and economic woes, but it's not stopping us! We're trading the conference setting with intimate in-house workshops. This is especially great since we just hired our newest puppeteer. From what I hear, the Chattanooga puppeteers are very talented so it sounds like a great opportunity.
After the training is over Monday evening, we'll be back to host a class for Festival of Sand at our office. We're really kicking into gear for the fundraiser so expect tons of updates soon!

Festival of Sand Poster Coming Soon

Fundraising season is about to kick into gear! We've been working on wrapping up Adopt-A-Puppet and putting together Garden Tour and Tea for June. We have done some brainstorming and recently came up with this year's theme for Festival of Sand. Since the event occurs on September 11, we decided to take the patriotic route. This year's theme will be: Show Your Colors. Interested schools, churches, and other organizations are welcome to compete for prizes in this event. This even has a ton to offer, so check out this year's poster! It will be hanging around your schools and churches very soon! Click on the poster for more information.

We are Busy, Busy!

Let me tell you, last week was a busy one and it's spilling over into this week, too. We're getting geared up on fundraisers by gathering with the respective committees. Garden Tour and Tea is really shaping up. We just received notification on our final gardens, so we're at full capacity with 8 gardens around the city. Everyone seems really excited about the line up for this one. Keeping up with fundraisers, we've set an official date for Festival Sand. We'll be building excitement for the Friday, September 11 event out at the Russell Sims Aquatic Park.

This first half of March is roaring in like a lion with a busy, busy schedule for the puppeteers. By the end of our work week tomorrow, the troupe will have performed 23 shows over the course of 9 days. They've hit the city and county schools to perform 6 different topics including: First Aid/H20 Safety, Fire Safety, Bike Safety, Bullies and School Safety, Child Abuse, and Divorce. And it shows no sign of slowing as the schedule will have the troupe adding another 28 shows in the last half of March. This month will come in like a lion and race right out just as fierce as ever. So as we've been so busy, I've been working on updating our catalog of photos. Here are some of my favorite from the past couple weeks. Enjoy!