CLEARLAKE, Calif. – It's not everyday that we can be super heroes, but on Sunday, Sept. 14, during Clear Lake Super Hero Day in Clearlake's Austin Park, the community itself was the super hero.
The objective was to launch the Hub and Wellness Center located at Lower Lake High School and to promote the Hero Project, a social media campaign and communication platform developed by Lake County Office of Education that celebrates families in Lake County and promotes parent and child engagement by a communication and event/training platform.
These programs are a symbol of the spirit of collaboration in Lake County between St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake, Konocti Unified School District and Lake County Office of Education in order to bring needed services to our children, students and families to improve the health of Clearlake.
“There must have been at least 2,000 people that showed up throughout the day. It was a great success,” said Bruno Sabatier, chair of the event committee.
Sabatier is a member of the Healthy Clearlake Collaborative, a group of community members, civic leaders and organizations that want to improve the health and well-being of Clearlake by working together on projects that will help break the cycle of poor health.
The Healthy Clearlake Collaborative has been meeting for more than a year, and this event was the launch of the initial programs it is supporting.
“I am humbled every time we meet by the passion and persistence of our members to make positive change in Clearlake and Lake County,” said Tricia Williams, chair of the Clearlake Collaborative and a vice president at St Helena Hospital Clear Lake. “This event represents how this community comes together to have fun and support each other.”
There was free food, free games and activities such as a water slide, a rock wall, a DJ and bouncy houses complete with a pillow fight activity.
The flash mob was a huge hit at the event as Zumba class instructor Becky Dino Nelson from The Gym led the dance. The crowd was caught off guard and some, including Spider-Man, joined in on the dance.
Families gathered at the Hero Project booth and signed up for the program and got their pictures taken in super hero attire.
The line at the booth was nonstop and the booth volunteers worked tirelessly all day long including Shelly Mascari, communications director and Wally Holbrook, superintendent of Schools for the Lake County Office of Education.
Included in the event were a number of booths ranging from Marymount California University to Konocti Basketball League to The Game Hub.
Each booth offered an activity or give away of sorts ranging from video games, free haircuts and/or extensions, bead work, bean bag toss and a full set of gymnastics mat to flip and do cartwheels on.
In order to produce such an event, it requires a healthy dose of volunteers. Some volunteers started at 7 a.m., while others came all the way from Santa Rosa to help out with the event.
The crowd was large and the temperature was hot, but luckily many local businesses pitched in to help with water such as Safeway, Ray's and Grocery Outlet.
“I want to thank Foods, Etc. for their contribution to this event. They helped supply the majority of our water for this event and it was hot, people needed to stay hydrated,” said Sabatier.
The food was delicious and even better, it was free. Cactus Grill and Sammi's Sandwich shop offered a delightful meal for all attendees.
Four Corners also gave donations to the event to fulfill the need for generators, as did Walmart and McKinley Photography with their kind contribution to the free raffle that occurred every 30 minutes during the event.
The funding sponsor of the entire event was St Helena Hospital Clear Lake, one of the founding members of the Healthy Clearlake Collaborative.
Many board of directors members, administrative personnel, Chief Executive Officer David Santos and more were in attendance for the event, all of them wearing smiles of how successful the event was.
If you are interested in signing up for The Hero Project please go to www.lakecountyheroproject.com or find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/theheroprojectlakecounty for updates.
