Can you believe how fast the year has gone? Here we are in Decem­ber and the hol­i­days are com­ing up quickly! Whether you have plans to stay in town or travel, the staff here at Play­Date wants to wish you a happy and safe hol­i­day filled with friends and family.

Please note: No ser­vices will be avail­able Christ­mas Eve, Christ­mas Day, New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day.
The social group ends for the year on Decem­ber 19; we will begin again on Jan­u­ary 9, 2010.

Our New Bus!

Some of you may have already heard our big news this month: We recently pur­chased an 11-​passenger bus. We are cur­rently using it to trans­port the kids to and from out­ings, and the chil­dren have already told us how much they love it! Seats on the bus are first come/​first serve and must be reg­is­tered and paid for by the Fri­day before a Sat­ur­day out­ing. Bus fare is cur­rently $2 a seat.

We plan to begin using the bus for school pick­ups very soon. If you’re inter­ested in hav­ing your child picked up at school to attend Play­Date groups or join or new After School group, please con­tact Mary at mary@​myplaydate.​org or (719)465‑3989 for more information.

Meet Lacy Knutson

Lacy Knut­son is our newest Play­Date group imple­menter. Lacy joined us in August 2009, after mov­ing here from South Dakota. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psy­chol­ogy from South Dakota State Uni­ver­sity and a master’s degree in Applied Behav­ior Analy­sis from St. Cloud State Uni­ver­sity. Lacy has com­pleted her require­ments for the Behav­ior Ana­lyst Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board and plans on tak­ing the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exam in March 2010.

Before com­ing to work at Play­Date, Lacy worked with adults who have devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. Although she enjoyed work­ing with adults for the past four years, she is very excited to work with chil­dren and to have a pos­i­tive impact on their future!

Group and Out­ings Information

Please see our Events page for more infor­ma­tion and (new!) online reg­is­tra­tion for out­ings. Remem­ber, you must reg­is­ter by the Wednes­day before any sched­uled event.

Decem­ber 5^th: Ice Skat­ing, 11:30 — 1:30, Ser­tich Ice Cen­ter
Cost is $4; please bring a sack lunch

Decem­ber 11: Teen Movie Night (time to be deter­mined), Cin­e­mark Care­free Circle

Decem­ber 18: Teen Office Party, 6:00 — 9:00 pm, Play­Date Behav­ioral Ser­vices Center

Decem­ber 21: Snoeze­len, 10:00 — 11:00 am, Good­will Snoeze­len Room

Spe­cial Thanks!

We would like to thank Memo­r­ial Park Aquatic & Fit­ness Cen­ter and Stars Gym­nas­tics for let­ting us use their facil­i­ties. The kids and staff had a great time swim­ming and per­form­ing stunts on the gym­nas­tics equip­ment at our out­ings in the last cou­ple of months.

Local fam­i­lies in need enjoyed a turkey din­ner this Thanks­giv­ing thanks to Play­Date dona­tions to Care and Share. Thanks to the Alvarez fam­ily, the Hogan fam­ily, Christina, and Mike for contributing.

Help!

We’ll soon be post­ing a “wish list” of items we could use at the cen­ter on our web­site. Please see our Donate page for more infor­ma­tion. Con­tact Mary at mary@​myplaydate.​org or (719)465‑3989 to donate items. Thanks!

We also need vol­un­teers to help sup­port our pro­grams. At the moment, we are in need of vol­un­teers to serve on our marketing/​fundraiser com­mit­tee, which devel­ops ideas to help us gen­er­ate fund­ing and reach more kids. If you are inter­ested in help­ing in this way, please con­tact Mary at mary@​myplaydate.​org or (719)465‑3989 for details.