St. Charles resident Chris Stafford and his family came to the Creek Bend Nature Center in St. Charles Saturday hoping to have some indoor and outdoor fun at the Forest Preserve District of Kane County’s first-ever Polar-Palooza fest.
“We follow the Forest Preserve’s website and this looked like it has a lot of fun activities for the kids,” Stafford said as he and his family prepared to enter the Nature Center building. “My daughter Evelyn, who is 5, says she’s really excited about doing some crafts.”
Forest Preserve District officials described the event as “a family-friendly winter festival designed to celebrate nature, community and our centennial anniversary” that offered families a chance to explore dozens of indoor and outdoor activities.
Beginning at noon, those remaining indoors at the Nature Center at 37W700 Dean St. were able to enjoy crafts, games and interactive exhibits. Hot chocolate and cookies were also available.
Outside, organizer Amber Ross, a naturalist at the center, admitted she let her “imagination run wild” when it came to creating a list of outdoor activities.
“I had a lot of fun with this. I designed this and put it together,” she said. “Our outdoor activities include making a pine cone bird feeder. Another is called Animal Olympics where participants will compete in six events with each catered towards an animal that is kind of an expert. A coyote can run quickly and kids are going to time themselves in a 100-yard sprint and compare their skills to an animal in nature.”
After completing the events, Ross said kids would receive two tickets for their participation which could later be redeemed for prizes.
“A couple of other activities will be a winter critter nature scavenger hunt as well as completing a letter box where kids will look for something in nature,” she said. “Instead of following GPS coordinates you are following a set of written clues. Kids will go, say, to the oak tree and then go 60 paces down the trail.”
Ross said the focus, overall, was to teach kids something about nature and “getting families outside in a season where they typically wouldn’t.”
“We wanted people to come out and try new activities. We are targeting families of all ages and want to see the whole demographic here,” she said. “Keeping this free – people just come and I wanted this to be educational, to play games and have fun but also learn something at the same time and learning something that they didn’t know before.”
Despite being its initial year, the event already appeared to be a success with organizers reporting more than 100 people went through the door into the event during its first 20 minutes.
Stafford’s wife Karen she and her family “love doing nature-based activities.”
“Evelyn does the Junior Ranger Program with the National Park Service and it’s great that this is local and gets us outside, even in the winter,” she said. “My daughter and Patrick, who is 2, are both going to like this.”
Sue Dunlop from Geneva brought her grandson Landon, 4, to the fest.
“We’re going to hit both, the inside and outdoor activities,” Dunlop said. “I hoping this is something that we’ll be coming to again.”
Sue’s husband Tim Dunlop added that visitors caught a break Saturday as the weather was set to be far colder on Sunday.
“I’m glad we caught a break here with the weather today because if it was Sunday, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Jennifer Nosalik of St. Charles said she and her daughter and grandkids were very excited to get started at the fest.
The staff “explained everything as soon as we walked in and what we are doing and we have our map and we’re good to go,” she said. “We’re going both inside and outside.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
