Back to School Carnival

The Back to School Carnival will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 5 at the Rotary Park.

This is the 14th year the Back to School Carnival has been held.

“The Back to School Carnival is for parents with young children to come and spend a day at the park with their children and just have fun,” said Sherilyn Sowell, director of the Family Support Center. “There will be food and games to play, and resourceful information for the family.”

The carnival is sponsored by the Prevention of Child Abuse Utah Team and The Family Support Center at the Christmas Box House. The Family Support Center is a safe place where parents that are in need of respite or crisis care can bring their children.

“There will be games of all kinds for children ages one to twelve years old, including face painting, rock star hair-dos, bingo, cupcake walk, fish pond, and other fun games from local non-profit organizations,” Sowell said.

Tickets are 25 cents each or 50 for $10 for the games and food.

“We will have hot dogs, hamburgers chips and drinks to purchase with tickets or cash,” Sowell said.

Informational booths on the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Utah Foster Care Foundation, Special Olympics, Head Start Preschool Program, Delta Chi ESA and other resources available in our community.

“We encourage all non-profit agencies that in particular are helping families and children in the community to also get involved with information about their programs and set up a fun booth for children and parents to enjoy watching their children have some fall fun,” Sowell said.

The Utah Foster Care Foundation will have an information booth.

Christian Harrison, the marketing manager for Utah Foster Care Foundation, said that there are approximately 2600 children needing foster homes, and about 1400 homes in the state providing care.

“The need is especially severe in this region,” Harrison said.

When a child is pulled from a home, the goal is to place the child with a family nearby.

“Our first goal is to return a child to their biological family. That means we need to find foster families nearby,” Harrison said.

If a home in the area isn’t found, then the child is often sent to a foster home in Salt Lake or other municipal areas.

“The biological parent would then have to spend hours to reach the child for visits, making it harder to reunite,” Harrison said.

He said that long-time Moab resident Geri Swift will be at the carnival to share information with potential foster parents

“For individuals with room in their heart, they can come and talk,” Harrison said. “If they can meet some qualifying questions, they are invited to training and a background check.”

Sowell said there will be a silent auction of donations from several local businesses and individuals.

“We are still in desperate need of donations from all the local business’s in the way of something from their business that would be great for our silent auction,” Sowell said. “A good portion of the fundraiser comes from the silent auction.”

All the money raised from this event will go to the Prevention of Child Abuse Utah.

Author: Moab Sun News Staff Report

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