My Wish Has Been Granted! Thank you, Pantene!!

Last fall, I entered a online contest sponsored by Pantene hair care products. The contest is called Beautiful Wishes. To enter, I had to write a brief sentence or two about my wish in three areas - my hair (they ARE a hair care company!), my life, and my community.

For my hair, of course I wished for thicker hair. That's a no brainer if you've ever seen my baby fine hair!

For my life, I wished for a new truck for my husband.

For my community, I wished to build an incredible park in our community that was not only a playground but also had an educational component to it that would draw children into learning more about nature and their environment.

Well, I just found out that I won the grand prize! Pantene is granting my wish and providing $5,000 to put into an educational component of an existing or future built park in our town! I'm was bouncing off the walls when I got off the phone earlier today. The timing of this is just perfect! A few months ago I made contact with someone in our local parks department about some ideas I had for a park and now I have some money to back it up!

This is such an important issue to me...watch out, I'm getting on my soapbox now! Children just don't spend enough time outdoors anymore. I think of my own childhood. I spent a lot of my free time roaming the neighborhood with my friends. We played in the dirt, climbed trees, built little fairy houses in flower beds, explored a creek at a local park, and spent a lot of time in imaginative play outdoors. It's a different world today though. With news of kidnappings and child molestors and other dangers in society today, parents are afraid to let their children just roam the neighborhoods anymore. And even if they did, there just isn't as much to explore outdoors now. With tightly packed master-planned communities, people have small yards with few or no trees. There are not many undeveloped open grassy areas or woods to explore. Therefore, children spend much of their time indoors watching TV, playing video games, or just hanging out at a shopping mall.

In the book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv talks about how this "nature deficit" may be the cause of some of the childhood problems that are on the rise today such as obesity, ADHD, and depression. He gives example after example of studies that show that just spending time in nature is important for children's, as well as adult's, physical and emotional health. Just think of the benefits a child can gain from a trip exploring in the woods. It requires use of all of his senses, promotes exploration and discovery, increases creativity and imagination, provides physical exercise and improves balance and coordination, reduces stress, educates about animals and other life in the community, and provides an appreciation for the environment around him.

So what can we do? As parents we can make a difference by taking small steps to bring nature into our children's lives. Play outside with your kids, have a picnic, plan a camping trip, go for a walk or bike ride, plant a garden, explore a local wooded area or creek, go fishing, or even just read books that take place outdoors or somehow draw children closer to nature.

What can we do as a community? Find ways to make nature more appealling to children. Our town has an annual Kid Fish event where they stock a local pond with fish and make a big production out of getting kids to come outdoors and fish. There are refreshments and prizes and lots of fun for all.

Of course, improving local parks is another great way to bring children outdoors and I plan to get more involved in this in my community. I have some great ideas for how to use this wish money to incorporate educational pieces into parks in our area. I'm just so excited for the opportunity to bring this to our town. Thank you, Pantene!