Just in time for the warmer summery weather, we have a wonderful new piece of playground apparatus at Neighborhood House. Thanks to the Allyn Foundation and volunteers from Welch Allyn who worked for a full weekend to install our “Playmaker” piece. The children have a wonderful opportunity to climb, slide, crawl, wiggle and steer.

For several years, we have been working to improve our playground, and step by step, we have made dramatic improvements. Change sometimes comes more slowly than we would like, but with perseverance and funding support, we have made great progress.

Children need lots of opportunities for large motor movement and good playgrounds facilitate this. To combat the epidemic of childhood obesity, they need lots of chances to be physically active and run, jump, climb and slide. A good playground can help children to focus their high energy levels in positive ways. Our playground improvement is a metaphor for all the good progress that we are making at Neighborhood House as we work to become an accredited center.

Another way that we are working towards accreditation is improved staff training. Seventeen members of our staff attended the annual meeting of the Syracuse Area Association of the Education for Young Children June 4 when Dr. Tom Lickona, an expert on helping children to develop good character, was the featured speaker. We thank the SAEYC for working to bring such fine speakers to our area to benefit teachers of young children.

Crass as it may sound, we know that good intentions will only take us so far, and we need to build the income side of our budget to continue making progress. Our largest fundraising event of the year is our annual summer children's carnival. This year, our eighth annual Carnival has a baseball theme and the fun event will take place from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 20.

The carnival features lots of fun, including children's games, crafts, prizes, food, a bouncy castle and raffles, along with a garage sale. This year, Abner, the team mascot from our championship Doubledays, will stop by to greet the children. All of our events are geared for young children and are priced for family entertainment. Everyone is welcome to come and join in the fun. We hope to raise $5,000, all of which will be used to purchase learning materials and equipment for our playground and classrooms.

While Neighborhood House is open all summer and we even run a summer program for school-aged children, our UPK program will end in June as our students graduate and enter kindergarten this fall. This fall, a new Universal Pre-Kindergarten year will begin. The Auburn School District still has some openings for children who will turn 4 years of age by Dec. 1 and who live in the school district. If you know of a 4-year-old who is not yet signed up for this high quality pre-school program, please call us at 252-5741 or the school district at 255-8819 and request an application. The morning or afternoon program runs at several different sites and is free to families.

Terry Denman, our UPK teacher, will be at our carnival on June 20 with a photo board detailing some of the fun activities done by our UPK kids this year. Come and meet her.

Susan Jones is executive director for the Neighborhood House in Auburn.