Last Monday saw the start of this year's city recreation program of the AWO Birkenfeld district association at the sports grounds of TSG Idar-Oberstein in Hammersteiner Meerhafen. Mayor Frank Frühauf, together with Sabine Moser and Sebastian Herzig from the city youth welfare office, paid a traditional visit to the vacation event and symbolically presented director Mike Stauder with a fruit basket. This represents a week's supply of fruit donated by the Youth Welfare Office to the city's recreation program. Mayor Frühauf thanked Mike Stauder for the commitment of the AWO and the numerous helpers. "The city recreation program is an important pillar of vacation activities, especially for working parents."
The theme of this year's three-week city retreat is "Avangers" (superheroes). "The kids were really excited about it," reported Mike Stauder. He and 32 supervisors look after 140 children in the first week of the vacation and around 100 in each of the following two weeks, including a number of children from the age of six who are looked after by an educator in their own 'daycare group'.
Despite the rain on the second day of the vacation, the mood among the kids is great. "We have a big water slide on site and lots of other sports, games and creative activities," says Stauder. This year, for the first time, there will be an Olympics in which AWO city recreation groups from several cities will compete against each other. "We already had the idea for this last year, but were unable to realize it," reported Stauder. He is therefore all the more looking forward to this year's premiere in the Meerhafen.
The city recreation manager is proud of the fact that the prices for participants were kept at the same level as the previous year. "But this was only possible thanks to the great support of the sponsors." Of course, inflation also has an impact on the costs of the vacation event. Added to this is the costly shuttle service, with the children being taken from the town center to the seaport in 9-seater buses. "It's relatively expensive, but there's no other way."