It Takes a Village: How Mountain Kids Gives Back

You’ve probably heard the expression “It takes a village to raise a child.” Here at Mountain Kids, we believe in giving back to that village in any way that we can — and including the participation of our children! 

From our work with local non-profit There with Care to participating in Community Food Share, Mountain Kids provides many ways for our gymnasts, dancers, ninjas and their parents to stay involved in the local community.

And it’s important for our kids to learn these habits from us at a young age. Not only does encouraging our children to contribute to the world outside of our home help our community grow closer, but it also carries many positive effects on our kids’ wellbeing.

Whether your child is a toddler or a teen, participating in community activism can strengthen their ability to empathize. And with increased empathy, your child can experience more self-awareness, confidence, and mindfulness about their community and their place within it as they grow.

Mountain Kids provides many different ways for our little athletes and their families to give back to our community. Here’s how you can become involved today.

Donating space for Imagine! Colorado’s Summer Day Camp

Imagine! Colorado is a non-profit organization that’s dedicated to creating a world of opportunity for people with all different abilities. Imagine provides educational and therapeutic services, job training and placement, recreation and leisure activities, opportunities for community living, behavioral health services, technology solutions and support for families.

For over 10 years, Mountain Kids has been donating space at our gym for Imagine’s Dayspring program participants to play and explore. Once a month, Imagine! use space at Mountain Kids for open gym. You can find more information on day spring here >

Let’s Bag Hunger Food Drive

Community Food Share’s mission is to help eliminate hunger in Boulder and Broomfield Counties through engagement, collaboration, and leadership.

Every year, Mountain Kids participates in CFS’s Let’s Bag Hunger food drive. This event stocks the pantry shelves of more than 40 non-profits in Boulder and Broomfield Counties.

Providing nutritious food to these organizations allows them to save money so they can focus their efforts on assistance with housing, healthcare, education and other community needs.

Schools and Local Boy & Girl Scout Troops

We provide free dance, gymnastics and ninja zone classes for preschools, girl scout troops, boy scout troops and more.

We’ve hosted weekly classes for students from Horizon K-8, along with field trips for Mountain View Preschool. We’ve also hosted a fundraising event for Jefferson St. Preschool twice a year.

We provide a teacher from Mountain Kids to supervise. The school charges an entry fee of their choice, and 100% of the entry fee goes back to the school.

Yearly Silent Auction and Benefit Dance Concert for There with Care

Working with There with Care has always been a foundational pillar for Mountain Kids’ mission to stay involved in our community.

In 2008, shortly before my mom passed away, she told me about an amazing organization that provided support for children and families in Boulder who were battling cancer and other critical illnesses.

In 2012, Mountain Kids hosted its first There with Care event. Since then, we’ve been proud community partners and supporters of this incredible organization.

Mountain Kids currently hosts several events every year to support There with Care. We host a collection for donation items, a preschool sweetheart party and an in-house silent auction. And our spring dance concert is specifically designed as a benefit for There with Care.

Parenting Safe Children Workshops

The Parenting Safe Children Workshops are the brainchild of author and speaker Feather Berkower. Feather Berkower has been a leader in child sexual abuse prevention since 1985. Using a community-based approach, she has trained over 100,000 school children, parents, and professionals

Mountain Kids assists with coordinating, hosting and promoting workshops with Feather.

To support the safety of our children, Mountain Kids has also hosted free Stranger Danger workshops with Jay Charness from APE Stranger Awareness. Jay also hosted a self defense class in 2018 that was empowering for our young teens.

Classroom Space for the Girls Leadership Institute

The Girls Leadership Institute is a nationwide non-profit that seeks to empower and teach leadership skills to girls, parents and teachers.

Mountain Kids has hosted these classes multiple times in our classrooms. These are a series of classes that help young girls navigate the social aspect of school life, both socially and academically.

Dance Studio Donations

Mountain Kids provides free studio space for resident dance companies to move and flourish. Our space donations have included Life/Art Dance and Ascential Dance Company.

Free Estate Planning

For our Mountain Kids parents, we’ve hosted a few free estate planning classes with the amazing Wendy Temkin. Wendy provided critical guidance to parents about estate planning, and answered any questions they had.

Do you work with a local non-profit, or know of one that’s doing important work in our community? We are always welcome to finding new ways to stay involved in the organizations that make our world a better place to live.

Reach out to us at anna@mountainkidslouisville.com if you have ideas for opportunities to connect Mountain Kids with a non-profit that you love.