12th Annual Pottstown Celebrates Young Children and YMCA Healthy Kids Day Set for This Saturday

There is lots of dancing at the annual Pottstown Celebrates Young Children and Health Kids Day.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Pottstown Early Action for Kindergarten Readiness.

Spring has arrived and so has the time for the 12th Annual Pottstown Celebrates Young Children and Pottstown YMCA’s Healthy Kids Day which will be held on Saturday, April 21, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Pottstown High School, 750 N. Washington St.

The FREE community event is designed for families with young children. Pottstown Early Action for Kindergarten Readiness or PEAK, Pottstown School District’s school readiness initiative, is partnering once again with Pottstown YMCA and the Pottstown Parks and Recreation Department to offer fun, family-friendly activities and resources from more than 85 community organizations.

There will be a petting zoo again this year.

Family entertainment will include a Quiver Farm petting zoo, bounce houses, Wacky Patti creating balloon art, Pure Fun Entertainment providing great music, face paintings from Health Partners Plans, mascots including Trojan Man, Red Cloud Kung Fu demonstrations, soccer, emergency vehicles including the medevac helicopter, and so much more. 

The YMCA will be providing an obstacle course and other fun fitness activities.

This year, PEAK is partnering with the Pottstown 7-Eleven as the main sponsor for the April 21 children’s celebration.

Valerie Jackson, the PEAK Coordinator said, “the generous donations such as those of 7-Eleven and our other sponsors make this day a success.” 

The YMCA will provide an obstacle course.

Other sponsors for this event include Pottstown Hospital Tower Health, Wawa store No. 8040, Costco, Giant and Wegmans of Collegeville. Jackson stated, “PEAK is about partnerships and this event is truly a partnership venture to bring the community together for the benefit of our families and children”

The Week of April 16 through April 20, 2018 is the Week of the Young Child, a children’s celebration organized by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The national event focuses on young children and their families by informing the public about early childhood programs and services.

Last year’s event drew thousands of individuals and organizers are hoping for an even larger crowd this year. FREE food and beverages will be available to keep families cool as they visit the various tables of organizations that connect families to resources. 

In addition to providing information about their organization, the tables will be filled with fun

Pottstown FARM will be among the many organizations
participating on Saturday.

activities and giveaways for both children and families to enjoy. Organizations in attendance will include Coventry Mall, Olivet Boys and Girls Club, ACLAMO, Pottstown Family Center, Pottstown FARM, Pottstown Police Athletic League (PAL), 422 SportsPlex, Health Partners Plans, Steel River Playhouse, Montgomery County Intermediate Unit and many more.

FREE gift bags filled with school readiness information and activity sets will be provided by Uniting Communities for Kids, a joint school transitions venture between West Pottsgrove Elementary School and PEAK.

For more information, contact Miica Patterson at mpatterson@pottstownk12.org or call 484-987-5553.

For more information about PEAK, visit the website at PottstownPEAK.org or contact Valerie Jackson, PEAK Coordinator, at vjackson@pottstownk12.org or 610-970-6655.

PEAK (Pottstown Early Action for Kindergarten Readiness) is a collaboration of Pottstown School District and community organizations that are working together to design and implement strategies that enable children to enter kindergarten ready to learn, and to engage Pottstown’s families. 

PEAK focuses its work in five interrelated areas: community outreach, family engagement, quality improvement, kindergarten transition, and health/wellness. PEAK’s overarching goal is to build an infrastructure that ensures all children in Pottstown enter kindergarten ready to learn.

A Place to Park on Pottstown's South Side

Pollock Park is located between South Street and Cross Street on Pottstown's south side.

More trees or fewer trees?

Keep the soccer field, the tennis courts and the basket ball court? Or get rid of them?

Lights?

A Gazebo?

These are the kinds of questions posed, answered and asked again Monday night during the first attempt at getting input on a concept plan for Pollock Park.

Your faithful blogger arrived 45 minutes late, as you no doubt realized, having read yesterday's post indicating I began the evening in Gilbertsville for a very short Douglass (Mont.) Supervisors meeting.

So forgive me if this report is less-than-complete.

The two-acre park is wedged in between South and Cross streets and is a neighborhood staple, if a little under-used.

In an attempt to change that, and with help from a grant from the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Simone Collins landscape architects met with a group of more than 20 people in the new community meeting room of the Pottstown Regional Public Library Monday night to get their thoughts.

There were a lot of them.

Many said they wanted to find ways to make the park safer, as well as more useful to the neighborhood. They worried about vandalism, but some said they didn't want lights.

Peter Simone, who heads up the landscape architecture firm, said in some parks they have installed motion sensor lights to cut down on vandalism.

There was also discussion of some sort of public art project and Assistant Borough Manager Justin Keller said the borough is currently working on an ordinance to make it easier to paint murals in the borough.

By the time the meeting was over, about 8:30 p.m., the idea board was packed with post-its and Simone said they would use those ideas to put together a draft plan to bring back to the residents.

That will occur on March 21, time and place to be announced.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets.

Pollock Park Planning Meeting Set for Feb. 6

Pollock Park is located in the 800 block of Cross Street on Pottstown's south side.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Pottstown Borough.

The Borough of Pottstown will host a public meeting to gather input for the Pollock Park Master Plan on Monday Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. 

The meeting will take place at the Pottstown Regional Public Library on 500 E High St. 

The presentation will include an existing conditions analysis of the park site and a brainstorming session. 

The Borough encourages all interested persons to attend this meeting. 

“We are open to a whole range of ideas for Pollock Park,” said Mike Lenhart, Director of Parks and Recreation. “We want to make this park a resource for the entire community.”

Based on public input, a draft plan will be created and presented to the public on March 21, for additional comment. 

Pollock Park is located at 847 Cross Street in the sixth ward of Pottstown. 

The plan is being prepared by the Borough with the assistance of Simone Collins Landscape Architecture of Norristown. 

Funding for the plan is partially provided by a grant administered by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Bureau of Recreation and Conservation. 

If you plan on attending, RSVP to Kourtney High, Borough Grants Administrator at (KHigh@pottstown.org) 

If you forget to RSVP please attend the meeting anyway!

'Tis the Season to be Freezin'

Just in case you haven't marked it down on your calendar yet, or are still drunk enough from your New Year's Eve revelry to think this is a good idea, the Ninth Annual Pottstown Polar Bear Swim will be held tomorrow morning in Riverfront Park.

Registration is from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. and is free. (As the borough web site notes, you'll pay in other ways ...)

A waiver must be signed and polar bears aged 16 and 17 may take the plunge only with signed authorization from a parent or guardian.

The few, the brave and the foolhardy will plunge promptly at 10:30 a.m. into the frigid waters of the Schuylkill River.

You can warm up after your plunge.

Not to worry, when you emerge, a blazing bonfire will be burning to help ring in the New Year and return your body temperature to something resembling normal.

Those who have (wisely) chosen discretion over valor are also free to enjoy the fire.

As if jumping into freezing cold water on a winter's day was not enough to entice you, there will also be a few words of encouragement from our mayor, as only our mayor can encourage.

The national anthem will be played, other canned music may be heard at some point from the loudspeakers, and combatants of great strength and reknown will compete in the Christmas Tree toss -- reward for which is sappy fingers and a few pine needles where they don't belong.

Pork hot dogs and sauerkraut will be on hand for those who enjoy that tradition as the first meal of the year.

Come on down and join the fun.

We can all start 2017 with a smile.

(In all likelihood, we're going to need all the smile we can get next year.)

Still Time to Register for the Halloween Parade

It's that time.

Pottstown's famous the Halloween Parade will be held next Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. on High Street.

If weather is inclement, the parade will be held Thursday , Oct. 27 at the same time. The decision will be made by 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Additionally, the evening will kick-off with the annual costume contest, to be held at Goodwill Fire Company at 6 p.m. the day of the parade.

This year, here is a fee to register groups to be in the parade and organizers are still taking registrations.

The fee is for businesses and organizations. Families, youth, and individuals still participate free.

The fees are $20 for non-profits (excluding fire companies and marching bands); $40 for business and commercial entities and $40 for political organizations.

The hope is that the addition of this funding feature will ensure the parade can continue in perpetuity as a partially self-funding event.

To register contact the Parks and Recreation office at 610-970-6018.

All proceeds go to the Rotary Club to pay parade costs.