Parent’s Night Out – connecting families, facilitating support, and having fun!
September 17th, 2018
Bread…
The best ranch dressing in Fresno…
Salad…
Pizza…
Rigatoni….
Laughter…
On Friday night, those items came together and created an incredible event! Our inaugural Parent’s Night Out event was small but truly mighty. We had 14 parents attend representing 11 TALK kiddos. There was so much connection! Some of our staff attended with the thought of needing to facilitate conversation and support interaction…what we actually did was sit in the corner and observe!
When the planning stages started, we wanted to facilitate parents connecting to one another in a positive way. We’d heard horror stories of traditional support groups being a mess of negative energy and complaining, and we knew that parents and caregivers deserved so much better. So began the dream of a parent/caregiver Happy Hour (alcoholic beverage optional, positive energy required), rich with connection, support, love, and laughter. Friday night our dream came true!
We are grateful to Luna’s in Old Town Clovis (yummy!) for the space, the service, and the delicious food. We are grateful to the team at TALK who volunteered their Friday nights to open the office as a safe place for the kiddos to play! We are grateful to the parents who came and enjoyed!
As a team, we walked away from Friday night even more passionate about this project. It is our hope that a team of parents will take over. We would love to see 4-6 Parent’s Night Out events every year. We want it to expand beyond TALK to any/every parent who craves that connection and support. We want to continue to provide low to no cost child care for those who attend. As we talked through the event, we had wild ideas of parents racing cars at MB2, climbing at MetalMark, bowling, painting – so many wonderful social opportunities!
If you were able to attend, we would love your feedback – and if you missed this one, keep your eyes open for our next event! We promise, you will not want to miss it!
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