The Clinton County Extension office put together the first annual “Longest Day of Play” last Thursday and the response was remarkable according to Clinton County Extension Agent of Family and Consumer Sciences Christy Guffey.

Guffey said you never know how an event is going to turn out, but this one is definitely one we will be having for years to come.

“It was a huge success,” Guffey said. “The first time you have an event you never know if people are going to take you up on it or not. By design, all we wanted was for families to spend some time together and to be active together.”

Guffey said the title, “Longest Day of Play” is not something unique to the people in the area because several communities have an event of this type.

“We really wanted to partner with the Wellness Center to bring some exposure to the fact we have such a nice opportunity for physical activity and to really think about a variety of things we can expose kids to,” Guffey said. “That’s why we really wanted to have the games and other things to define the gross motor skills development.”

Other than having games outside for the kids to be active with, inflatables as well as the pool inside the Wellness Center were available to those who participated in the event.

“For a lot of them it was the first time they got to spend some time in the water,” Guffey said. “We had close to 300 people overall and it went much better than we originally thought it would. We are doing things at the Wellness Center as a part of the CDC grant and we already have the water bottle station out there and then they are having a playground installed in the back of the Wellness Center. We want to start thinking about having programs there.”

One reason the “Longest Day of Play” event was held on Thursday was in order to have the Summer Feeding Program involved.

Guffey said they have been using the Wellness Center as a feeding program site this year and wanted to incorporate that with the event held last Thursday.

“We scheduled it on Thursday because that’s the one day the library is closed, so every week we’ve been doing a little education program on healthy eating or physical activity and we are really hoping that will encourage more people to hang out with us every Thursday until the end of July.”

With an event like what was held Thursday, Guffey said there are several partners that teamed up to make the day a success.

“It really became something that Extension came to facilitate and along with the Clinton County Health Coalition. We have our traditional partners who are always involved with us,” Guffey said. “We had a strong calibration with the schools and the family resource center and childhood council, April Speck jumped on board through the other roles she has with the Tourism Commission and the chamber of commerce.”

Other groups involved were the Administrative Office of the Courts, a couple different managed care groups, and other teens who volunteered their time.

“It really worked,” Guffey said. “I said early on if we had 150 people there it was going to be a success.”

The extension office also utilized the fact that June is considered Dairy Month with the help of intern Kayla Shelton, the kids were able to make homemade ice-cream during the event.

“A lot of kids don’t understand where their food comes from so that was another opportunity to put a little information out there,” Guffey said. “We had a chance to see people being fed breakfast and lunch through the summer feeding program, had a chance to do the physical activity stuff and as much as anything, I went inside and saw the parents in the pool with their kids, they were together doing something and we wanted parents to be there. Yeah we wanted them there to add a little safety there, but it helps them see that sometimes a couple of hours away as a family could help us all.”

Guffey said she will definitely keep this event on the radar because of the time of year and the amount of success it had.

“The timing of the year was a good thing,” Guffey said. “If it had been typical weather, we would have melted and been done in two hours. Honestly, when we first started designing the event we knew we were being ambitious. A lot of counties only do three to four hours and that’s it. I really wanted to see it go into the evening for the longest day of the year. It really worked out perfect.”

Guffey said she is already looking into next year and putting together some ideas to keep the event fresh and fun for everyone.

“We might do some obstacle course type things or some relays in order to get the kids to come together and become a team,” Guffey said. “We know that a lot of the games we had kids could just pick up and play them on their own and I think there is an opportunity to involve some more teens and help facilitate what we call ‘recreation activity.'”

Guffey said she knows they want to increase the number of vendors that were present.

“I would like to get it connected to safety a little bit more and maybe see if we can do some water safety and specific little lessons,” Guffey said. “I think we can think about our schedule a little bit, but those kids absolutely loved those inflatables and that’s a win.”

Guffey said she will start planning around February and March of next year in order to provide a larger event for 2019.

“I do like the idea of being there at the Wellness Center and if some of these plans would ever come to pass with our trails and things like that, we would have such an expanded opportunity for what we could do in years to come.”

April Speck, with the Healthy Hometown Coalition, worked to sign people in to Thursday’s Longest Day of Play Event put on by the Clinton County Extension Office. Extension Agent Christy Guffey said more than 300 people were in attendance.

Above, kids and adults alike swarmed the table where homemade ice cream was being made on Thursday to promote June as being Dairy Month through the Clinton County Extension Office. Below, kids did some balloon bowling as apart of being active for the “Longest Day of Play” event held on Thursday at the Albany/Clinton County Wellness Center.