On November 21^st in Woodley Park, located in the San Fernando Valley, the anti-gang coalition of the Los Angeles Police Department and associated agencies, put on their 2^nd annual Children’s Day, a Salute to Kids.   

The all-day event is about kids and for kids with activities to keep the day fun and entertaining as well as over a hundred resource booths where local non-profit organizations displayed their programs designed to provide services for children and families.

Tens of thousands of kids and adults filled the nearly one half mile long park and enjoyed the rides, the creative activities, the police helicopter and the song and dance.

Happy House hosted three features. We had a resource booth for the release of our new Good Choices Program which features a simplified version of The Way to Happiness for children. Here families could find out about our Good Choices Toolkit, which gives a clear program on how to improve character and the quality of choices. They could also enter a raffle for a giant animation basket.

We also hosted the annual Arts and Crafts tent which was touted by one event organizer as the top feature of the year. The biggest hit was the paper hats that were fashioned to fit by Happy House volunteers.

A third offering was our new Giant Happy House, where families could get photos taken for free and really get the feel of what Happy House is all about.

Last, but certainly not least, Nancy Cartwright once again brought her voice-actor friends in to entertain the kids on the children’s stage.  They followed this up with a signing of special photos featuring the characters they are famous for.

There were other features that Happy House helped bring to the party. One was a Jumbo-tron which lit up the day behind the main stage. It was the back drop for the likes of Dave Kos and many others and during act change-overs several of The Way to Happiness PSAs played on the giant screen. Another were theatre extraordinaire performers of the Teenage Drama Workshop, led by Doug Kaback and Ronnie Sperling. And also gracing the stage was A Faery Hunt, Deborah Rothstein’s wonderfully entertaining and magical troupe of fairies, which also painted faces, strapped on fairy wings and made us all smile.

It was truly a day for the children and one where parents could feel safe and secure and really let their kids be kids.

www.childrensday2009.com