By By JAMES COLLINS / Niles Daily Star
NILES -- You have probably heard of bring your daughter to work day, but how about bring your daddy to school day.
Northside Child Development Center's "My Guy and Me" program offered a fun way to promote relationships between children and the important male figures in their lives recently.
Northside's first ever "My Guy and Me" was a free evening, in which the school's preschoolers brought their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, older brothers or male friends to enjoy a movie and refreshments.
Upon arrival, each student posed for a picture with their guest and then proceeded to go to the activity room for popcorn, a drink, and the showing of "Lion King 1 1/2"
After the movie, each child and guest were given a framed picture of the photo that was taken of them.
Kris Webster, father of Northside preschooler Savannah, was very happy that the school put on a program involving the fathers.
Scott Schneider, father of Northside preschooler Madison, agreed.
Schneider said his daughter was very excited about the program and kept referring to the evening as a date.
Kathy Emmons, Northside Head Start and family service worker, said the students' excitement for the event was apparent when she heard all of the children talking about the program at school on Thursday.
Wickham was very happy with the event's turnout and said they had 97 participants sign up for Thursday's program. She was surprised by the amount of interest generated by the program and had a big screen television brought in to accommodate the large crowd.
With a great response and nearly 100 smiling faces, this type of parent involvement program is sure to become one of Northside's regular events in the future.