May 2009

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful month of May. We had an exciting week here last week with visitors from Virginia, Minnesota, and St. Louis. The results were wonderful because Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago believes that our Capable Kids and Families program is worthy of an extensive evaluation. This evaluation will give validity to our belief that CKF services are valuable to participating families and their children. This is really our first step in expanding CKF across the state of Missouri! Exciting and just a wee bit scary! 

FAMILY FUN DAY!

Disc Golf

Fit Phelps helped out with the First Annual Family Fun Day - held at Ber Juan Park in Rolla this past Saturday. One of the great contributions we got to make was the donation of a Disc Golf set for the City of Rolla who will set up a permanent course in the very near future. We purchased the equipment with funds from the Missouri Foundation for Health. I had no idea what a big deal this sport is but found the following information at the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) web site:

Disc golf is played much like traditional golf. Instead of a ball and clubs, however, players use a flying disc, or Frisbee® The sport was formalized in the 1970's, and shares with "ball golf" the object of completing each hole in the fewest number of strokes (or, in the case of disc golf, fewest number of throws).

A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target which is the "hole". The hole can be one of a number of disc golf targets; the most common is called a Pole Hole® an elevated metal basket. As a player progresses down the fairway, he or she must make each consecutive shot from the spot where the previous throw has landed. The trees, shrubs, and terrain changes located in and around the fairways provide challenging obstacles for the golfer. Finally, the "putt" lands in the basket and the hole is completed. (www.pdga.com)

The Centre will soon have discs for sale and you can also pick  up a score card at the front desk. So go out and exercise and have a great time at Rolla's new Disc Golf Course coming to a city park near you!

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC

Thank You Erica!

Erica Westenberg gave a beautiful gift to our Capable Kids and Families program this week. She gave the gift of her time and amazing musical abilities! I wish you could have seen the dancing, smiling, and playing of all the musical instruments by the kids but first we will have to get a camera with better image stabilization because we sure don't want the kids to hold still for this great fun!

Erica got everyone warmed up and then played wonderful renditions of favorite nursery rhymes and children's songs. Erica is an amazingly gifted musician and we are so very grateful for her time and talent! I hope we can have her back soon! Thanks so much Erica.

Don't forget to listen to Pulse of the Partnership at 9:30 a.m. on KTTR this Monday, May 18, 2009. We will be featuring the Resale Shop and all of the wonderful benefits it provides our community. On a personal note, my wonderful Rory and I will be celebrating our 30th anniversary this Tuesday, it is not possible that we are that old! I hope you enjoy the rest of this gorgeous month! Sincerely,