From “bounce houses” for energetic kids to craft tables for quiet creation, To Life! offers many entertainment venues for youth of all ages. Taking over Ash Street, the children’s area includes art tables, a stage featuring popular acts, face-painters, clowns, caricaturists and more.
With many more sponsors this year than last, the children’s area will incorporate up 10 crafts tables with free activities, such as making Rosh Hashanah cards, tzedakah boxes and “stained glass” wall hangings from sticky contact paper and cellophane.
The Peninsula Jewish Community Center will again offer interactive learning activity like last year’s “Wisdom of the Sages.”
The Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center will display art submitted by kids ages 5 to 10 in the “My Favorite Jewish Holiday” art contest sponsored by the JCC and j. the Jewish news weekly. Entries were judged in two age categories (5 to 7 and 8 to 10), and winners vied for a host of prizes, including $100 savings certificates from Wells Fargo Bank.
Kids’ activities chairperson Susan Silver, in charge of “booking” the sponsors, found schools and organizations committed to children’s activities and very willing to fund a booth.
“It’s been a very easy sell,” she said. “The booths give parents the opportunity to see the schools, and it’s a great way for the schools to connect with the kids: a win-win situation.”
To Life! Program Director Stephanie Brown is also excited at the number of cost-free activities for kids this year, as it makes the “family-friendly” festival that much easier to enjoy.
“I like to have a lot of community involvement, mostly things run by schools, day schools and synagogues,” Brown said. “It gives it a fun, noncommercial feel, and makes it inexpensive for families with several kids to come.”
Other activities, such as the “bounce house” and ceramic studio CreateIt!, which will offer a place to make hand-painted tiles, will charge a small fee.
In addition to the booths, the children’s stage, sponsored for the first time by the Ira A. Roschelle MD Family Foundation, will feature non-stop entertainment from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. This will include preliminary rounds of the popular Jewish American Idol competition, interspersed throughout the day. Other performers include Yavneh Day School Choir, the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School Band, and percussionist Dror Sinai of Santa Cruz.
The entertainment variety reflects Brown’s goal to have the festival celebrate a broad spectrum of Jewish culture.