Jack Lonie from the St Kilda Saints giving the Kids Huddle board a big thumbs up.
We mean it when we say Kardinia Park is a Stadium for all.
The Kids Huddle is an exciting new initiative by the Kardinia Stadium Park Trust to engage local school children with the Stadium, the AFL and the community.
For each Geelong Cats home game, a local primary school will be chosen to create welcome posters, with drawings and messages of encouragement, for the opposing team. Their artwork will then be collected and made into a bright collage near the players’ race.
This initiative not only allows kids to be creative, but it encourages them to be kind and welcoming to people outside of our community, building a warm and friendly environment for everyone.
“We’re always looking for ways to get the community involved,” says Kirsten Blake, the Trust’s Community Engagement Coordinator. “We saw a great opportunity to get local kids involved in game days and to help them feel a part of something bigger.”
The Kids Huddle kicked off with Geelong’s first home game. Round 4 saw Holy Family Primary School in Bell Park create some beautiful posters for the Saints players. On game day when GMHBA Stadium is a sea of blue and white, a splash of team colours for the opposition right outside the away team rooms adds a lot of vibrancy.
It will run for the duration of the 2018 AFL season and each home game will see a different primary school from the Geelong region getting involved. We intend to present each school with a photograph of their collage and a team representative or player as a thank you. Something to show off back at school.
“It’s our vision to be Australia’s best regional stadium and we can’t do that alone. The Kids Huddle is a feel-good initiative that brings with it a lot of fun for the primary students as well as us.”
This coming week, students from South Geelong Primary School are creating some masterpieces to welcome the Sydney Swans to GMHBA Stadium. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.
