9th Annual Kids Can Fly Storybook Breakfast
9th Annual Kids Can Fly Storybook Breakfast
The Kid’s Can Fly Storybook Breakfast held on February 6, 2016, at the New Covenant Christian Fellowship was its usual sold out success. The 300 people over two breakfast settings were shown to their tables by storybook characters who could have been a fairytale princess, a comic book Thor or Spiderman, Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood and many more.
Several of the children and their families showed up in costumes as well. They were all given their own Official Autograph book and in it featured Ads from all the sponsors of the event. Special photo sittings where taken with Spiderman, Jake the Pirate, Olaf, Cinderella, Llama Llama and Toopy by volunteers and sent to each family.
The Sherwood Restaurant Brantford catered the breakfast of pancakes, sausages, and lots of fresh fruit. And each table was adorned with its own unique centerpiece featuring a popular storybook.
All the volunteers – from the servers to the characters – have been returning year after year to support this event. Margot Kneale, a retired teacher who has been volunteering at the breakfast for several years says, “You can automatically tell the kids who have been read to at a very early age.” Another volunteer, Colleen Vandaele, ended up being part of the breakfast because her daughters got involved in representing some of the storybook characters, so she just “stayed and helped”. “It’s our way of giving back,” she says.
Organizer and Executive Director of Kids Can Fly & Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Brantford/Brant, Sharon Brooks, said the Storybook Breakfast is one of the biggest fundraisers for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library which is a monthly book gifting program for children ages 0-5. The event has continued to grow in its 9 years and changed to larger venues several times. She says it won’t get larger than 300 tickets. Of Kids Can Fly she says, “It’s all about supporting the growing child as much as you can from the get go.” Brooks adds, “It showcases the importance and joy of families reading with their kids.” She says the aim is to be true to literature during the event and even though some of the stories have become movies, “It had to have been a book first” to be featured at the breakfast. She says she has noticed a big change in technology since she started the Storybook Breakfast, so the goal is to promote “putting down the ipod and picking up a book.”
Throughout the morning, children had the opportunity to get autographs from their favourite characters and have photos taken with them. Children’s music played over the sound system throughout the morning while Brooks announced various happenings from the stage. At the end, all the characters paraded out and lined up to say goodbye to the children. Each child received a bag with a book to take home. All those involved are anxiously looking forward to next year’s Kids Can Fly Storybook Breakfast.
Kids Can Fly is a charity unique to Brant with a mandate to support positive nurturing in early childhood. Programs it provides are Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, The Launch Pad, Parachute Program, Roots of Empathy, Mothers In Mind and the ECE Awards. For more information about the organization or their programs, please visit: www.kidscanfly.ca
Make sure to Be Seen visiting with some fun storybook characters at next year’s event!
Submitted by: Sandra L. Anderson
To see more of her work, please visit: Sandlyn Publishing
