Need ideas for family friendly fun this summer? Bellevue has a bucket list of ideas, and city officials are sharing them in a unique way.
On Wednesday, June 5, the city of Bellevue kicked off its summer events with a Book Bus tour stop, a rubber duckie relay, and the first distribution of colorful summer buckets. The buckets contain lists and information on family-friendly activities throughout the city all summer long.
The event held at Bellevue Beach Park drew crowds lining up to receive the buckets and to participate in the first summer event.
The Campbell County Library’s Book Bus came for a visit. The bus will be visiting stops in the county throughout June and July. After the bus visit, children could meet ducks from Longbottom Bird Ranch and a few local celebrity pups — Cooper, Dayton’s K-9 police dog, and Koda the Therapy Dog. Kids could also participate in a rubber ducky relay race.
The idea for a bucket list came to Bellevue Marketing and Communications Director Melissa Morandi when she was thinking about all the children who were about to be out for summer.
“This is our very first year doing this bucket list… As the mom of two kids, I was thinking there’s a lot of kids who are home during the summer with their parents. Either the parents work from home or the parents stay home with them. And, it can get a little boring. So I came up with this 10-item list of fun, free things that families and kids could do to entertain themselves during the summer,” Morandi said.
The Bellevue Bucket List includes some summer events organized by the city, as well as do-it-yourself ideas that take advantage of city parks and amenities.
“Some of the items are ideas that you can do anytime, like the Park Hop Until You Drop & STOP for Schneider’s Sweet Shop or the Little Library Crawl. And then there’s a couple of events that have a specific date and time that are going to be completely free and open to the public,” she added.
The city’s departments are involved with a pizza party/touch-a-truck with the public works crew on June 18 (Bellevue Beach Park), Popsicles with the Cops (Swope Park) on June 25, Lunch at the Firehouse on July 17 (Bellevue-Dayton Fire Dept.), and a Cookout with the Cops on July 25 (Bellevue City Building).
The Little Library Crawl is for families who want to visit all 25 of the city’s Little Library locations. A list of the locations is included in the buckets. The Campbell County Library has ensured that all the locations have children’s books to share. Anyone can borrow a book from a Little Library, return it, and take another.
“And we’re all coming together to make a really fun experience for the kids so that they can A, have fun and get entertained, and B, get to know some of the city officials and what they do. It’ll just be a ton of fun,” said Morandi
The buckets are available while supplies last at the city building on 616 Poplar Street. After that, the lists will be distributed around town and can be found on the city of Bellevue Facebook page.
