As a way to keep kids educated, engaged, connected and even moving, the department rolled out new programming on Facebook last week.
Thanks to the novel coronavirus, Plant City’s annual Citywide Easter Egg Hunt didn’t happen last week. It would have been impossible to host under social distancing guidelines with hundreds of kids turning out annually to hunt for eggs, even with a big field to roam around.
Despite the loss of one of the city’s most popular annual kids’ events, the Parks and Recreation Department still had a plan. Last week became “Easter Week” on Facebook and the department updated the page daily with all kinds of content for kids and their families. Fun facts, a “bunny hop” exercise challenge, educational videos, crafting tutorials and even an online Easter egg hunt — where Facebook users could guess how many eggs were hidden in photos of a PCPRD conference room and garden — were posted throughout the week leading up to the holiday.
Easter may now be over, but the department is only just beginning.
Last week’s Easter theme was the first of many to hit the PCPRD Facebook in the coming months. This week, for example, is “Parks Week” and those who check the Facebook page every day have learned a thing or two about state and national parks. Coming soon are themes like “Flowers Week,” “Exercise Week,” “Animals Week,” “Weather Week,” “Oceans/Marine Life Week,” “Insects Week,” “Rocks and Volcanoes Week,” “Pokémon Week,” “Farm Week” and more.
“I’ve been tracking a lot of our data through Facebook insights and I think the response has been pretty positive,” Special Events Coordinator Kristen Self said. “I see a lot of people sharing it and engaging. We had that one post where we hid Easter eggs in our conference room and our gardens, it reached over 1,000 people and a lot of people commented on it. I would say overall, it seems like people are enjoying what we have. I think people are excited to see there’s something they can do that inspires them intellectually and creatively.”
The position of Special Events Coordinator was revived for the current budget year “due to the increased amount of special events that we host each year,” department director Jack Holland said, and Self joined the PCPRD team in February to fill that role.
When she started, it was business as usual. The department was working on the Citywide Easter Egg Hunt, putting together another Youth Fishing Derby, planning for the Fourth of July celebration and preparing for Bike with the Mayor when the pandemic forced state and local governments to issue safer at home orders and encourage social distancing. Most of those events have since been canceled, though the Fourth of July celebration at Plant City Stadium is still in the works. Less than one month into her new job, Self and the department were forced to completely restrategize.
“I was ecstatic coming into a great environment with great people,” Self said. “I was excited to get on board and get to work, so when the pandemic hit I found it as a way to get inspired.
Working together with Holland, Deborah Haldane and the rest of the department, Self has planned out enough Facebook programming for the department to use through August 7. If COVID-19 cases decline enough before then to where social distancing guidelines and safer at home orders can safely be eased or lifted, the programming will continue on a smaller scale than the weekly format it’s in now.
“The idea is to give our community some hope,” Self said. “People are getting discouraged not being able to live their normal lives.”
No one knows for sure when society can get closer to being normal again and when events can bring people back together. Self said the Parks and Rec department is working to make sure that when everything does come back, city events will be “10 times better” than they have been.
“It’s kind of a bummer because we had all these cool events,” Self said. “But even though we’re not having them now, we can plan to have them bigger and better next year.”