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Chestermere expo offers camp information

Parents in southeast Rocky View County can enjoy a hassle-free opportunity to find summer recreation options for their families at the upcoming Summer Camp & Recreation Expo, taking place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Summer Camps
At the Summer Camp & Recreation Expo, parents will have a chance to learn about several recreation options to keep their children busy during the summer months.

Parents in southeast Rocky View County can enjoy a hassle-free opportunity to find summer recreation options for their families at the upcoming Summer Camp & Recreation Expo, taking place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. April 6 at the Chestermere Recreation Centre. “The expo is about bringing camps and recreation programs all to one central location, so parents can come and check them out all at once, as opposed to researching them online,” said event co-ordinator Kim Soderberg McRae. Speaking from personal experience, Soderberg McRae said, it can be challenging and time-consuming for parents to find ways to keep their children occupied throughout the summer months. “You can look online, and your kids will come home and say, ‘Joey’s going to this camp, I want to go,’ but then you don’t have any information about the camp,” she said. The free expo will feature around 20 camps and programs from Chestermere, Strathmore and Calgary, including Camp Chestermere, Flying Squirrel Sports, SAIT Summer Camps, Wheatland Society of Arts and the Calgary Yacht Club. For the first time, Chestermere’s Kidz 1st Network Parent Link Centre will partner with the expo to register participants for its spring programs. “They usually expect quite the lineup for their programs because all of their programs are free, and it’s first come, first served,” Soderberg McRae said. Face painting and craft stations will keep kids entertained while parents learn more at the various booths, and the first 100 guests through the door will receive swag bags. According to Soderberg McRae, this year’s event introduces “Expo Bingo,” where families can fill out a bingo sheet with stamps from each booth and be entered to win four tickets to the upcoming Cirque du Soleil production Luzia, presented this summer in Calgary. The expo is usually well-trafficked, Soderberg McRae said, and she estimated at least 300 people would attend during the course of the day. With the event now in its third year, she said, parents are usually thankful for the single source of recreation information. “I’ve had feedback…that something like this needs to happen in Calgary,” she said. “They like being able to come to one location and talk to camps that they’re interested in or discover some that they’d never heard about before, instead of spending time to do all the research on their own – you know, sit in front of a computer trying to find the perfect soccer camp or the perfect riding camp.”

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