Kids crawled under Slide Tunnel Mountain and wheeled toy cars with sock feet at the first Kindergym in Daajing Giids last week.
With brightly coloured play structures funded by a Northern Health IMAGINE grant, including a padded pen handy for wrangling toddlers or stealing a nap, the drop-in play time for children up to age five will run most Wednesdays from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Daajing Giids Community Hall.
Parents and caregivers are required to stay and supervise their children, and are asked to bring indoor shoes so the play equipment stays clean. There is a suggested donation of $2 but no one will be turned away.
Kirsten Holuboch volunteered to get a weekly Kindergym started here after seeing on Vancouver Island how they make it easy for kids and caregivers to have fun and make friends.
“It made a big difference in my life,” said Holuboch, laughing. Living in Victoria, Shawnigan Lake and Cowichan Bay, she was often solo parenting with two kids aged five and under.
Typically free or $2, Kindergyms seem to be a Vancouver Island tradition, she said. Holuboch thought about starting one when she moved to Daajing Giids, but COVID delayed things.
Even though her own kids are now seven and 10, Holuboch stuck with it and had good support from the volunteer-run Daajing Giids Community Hall, where she is one of several new directors on the board.
The $10,000 Northern Health grant covered the play equipment (and the brutal shipping costs), but Holuboch volunteers her time to run the Kindergym, which she hopes will continue most Wednesday mornings the hall is available through the fall-to-spring rainy season.
“I just really wanted to do this for the community,” she said. “Hopefully people will enjoy it.”
