By Emily Burleigh

The first “STEM Family Fun Day in the Park” will take place Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m at Drew Park.

This event will be hosted by The City of Lake Charles’ Partners in Parks Initiative and Phillips 66. The idea for this event stemmed from the desire to enhance community outreach.

“The City of Lake Charles reached out to partner with Phillips 66 on a family day in the park to engage the community in this public space,” said Megan Monsour Hartman, Phillips 66 Public Relations Director of Phillips 66 Manufacturing Complex. “Their idea was to re-energize Drew Park’s programming through community partnerships.”

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) was chosen as the focus of this event. “STEM education is important for our future workforce,” said Hartman. “One of our community goals at Phillips 66 is to inspire our future workforce in STEM careers.”

Hartman stated that the STEM Family Fun Day is a great opportunity for children to participate in hands-on engagement in chemistry, engineering, and science.

“What better way to inspire young people than to have our chemists, engineers, operators and others getting hands-on with them exploring STEM concepts through fun experiments,” she said.

According to Hartman, the skills taught in STEM education apply to our everyday lives, and the activities that will be available at the event will explain this to young participants.

“We developed a variety of STEM stations that children can participate in throughout the morning,” she said. “The hands-on experiments and demonstrations will be an eye opening experience for a lot of young people.”

“Students will learn to appreciate and value science through making elephant toothpaste, glitter slime, lava lamps, fire snakes, volcanos, dry ice bubbles and playing with Orbeez.”

In addition to the STEM stations, children will have access to a kiddie train, fun jump, and snacks. The Children’s museum will also be onsite with activities and an art station.

“They’ll also have the chance to ask questions to the industry employees volunteering,” stated Hartman.

This event is the result of collaboration between the Partners in Parks initiative and Phillips 66.

“When we launched Partners in Parks in 2018 our goal was to not only create new partnerships that would allow us to make transformative changes to the infrastructure of our city parks without additional financial burden to our citizens, but also to enhance and reenergize park programming through innovative community partnerships,” explained Nic Hunter, Lake Charles Mayor.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Phillips 66 and the Children’s Museum on this free event that promises educational fun for the entire family.”

“Phillips 66 is proud of our rich partnership with the City of Lake Charles and the Children’s Museum who have helped make this happen,” said Hartman.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, call 337.491.1280.