Friday Funday a positive place for youth

Stilly Valley Youth Dynamics is providing a positive place for local kids to hang out on several days over the next couple of months as part of their Friday Funday events.

The organization held their first event on March 25, but have four more dates planned on April 15 and 29 and May 13 and 27.

The events are free and held at Arlington’s Legion Park from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“We’re here at Legion Park and we’re here just to reach out to the students, give them some treats and give them a space to hangout,” said Jessica Ronhaar, executive director of Stilly Valley Youth Dynamics.

Youth Dynamics brings games for kids to enjoy at the event.

“We have big park games that are from the pop-up park that the city has,” said Ronhaar, who added they provide giant Connect 4 and checkers games, a Yahtzee game and a football to throw around.

They will also provide some snacks for the kids.

“We’re just giving some supervision but also some fun stuff for kids to do that is creative,” said Ronhaar.

The organization wanted to help the city after they received some complaints about how the park was being used over the last couple months.

“We’ve heard a lot of businesses talk about issues around here so we wanted to create a different outlet for these kids with games and entertainment,” said Stilly Valley Youth Dynamics board president Britt Kleinman. “We’re really excited as an organization and I’m excited as a parent, because there’s been a lot of issues in the park the last few weeks. Kids are getting out early and want places to go."

Ronhaar said it is a good way to introduce local kids to Youth Dynamics as well.

“We are a parachurch organization and we work with the city and the schools and the churches to create positive relationships for kids and safe places for them to be,” said Ronhaar.

They also provide many outdoor recreation activities.

“We take kids on adventure trips, such as a weekly rock climbing,” she said.

More information about them is available on their Facebook page at facebook.com/stillyvalley.youthdynamics.

Youth Dynamics officials said they were happy with the turnout for the group’s first Friday Funday event.

“So far we are about 10 minutes in and we have had a whole bunch of kids come by, so I think it’s going pretty good,” said Ronhaar.

“We’ve seen about 35 kids and we usually get around 20 to 25 each Friday at our facility, so we’re excited to do this again,” said Kleinman.