Friday Night: Let Bernal Rec Center Entertain Your Kids While You Wine and Dine

/ Todd_Lappin

halloween 120

Neighbor Nicole from Winfield Street wants to help spread the word about a fabulous program for kids at the Bernal Rec Center:

The Bernal Rec Center behind the Bernal Library puts on this great Kid’s Fun Zone program once a month, but last month it was canceled due to not enough participation. I told Atajinae I’d try and get the word out this time since it is such a GREAT program.

Kid’s Fun Zone is basically four hours of evening babysitting for $20. My 5 year old daughter loves going. I think she loves it because of the staff, the bouncy house, the general party atmosphere, arts & crafts, movies, the list goes on and on.

The details are below. I am amazed by how few Bernal parents know where and what the Rec Center is, and I’m baffled by how few parents take advantage of this awesome program.

May Kid’s Fun Zone
May 16,2014
6:00pm-10:00pm

Dinner is Provided. (Pizza, Fruit, and Water)
Jumper, Arts & Crafts, Games and more!
Email <atajinae.jarreau@sfgov.org> to your space today

Bonus: Profits go towards free community events, such as the free Rootbeer Float Day the Rec Center had last Wednesday, or the  cotton candy machine that was just purchased for the Rec Center.

PHOTO: Bernal Rec Center

13 thoughts on “Friday Night: Let Bernal Rec Center Entertain Your Kids While You Wine and Dine”

  1. Maybe because the hours are too late, it should be from 5-9. My kids (4 & 7) would be a wreck by 10, 9 is pushing it. 4:30-8:30 would be even better. Have a drink at 4:30, dinner at 5, pick up by 8:30 !

    • Sure it would be nice if it was a 5pm start. But it isn’t and it only costs $20! Maybe people have a hard time leaving work to be there by 6 let alone 5. You could do 6-9pm. No rules about pick up and drop off times other than it ends at 10pm.

  2. I have to say we have loved this when we have done it! It fits in well with the working parent’s work schedule and you can pick your child up whenever. My kids always come back having had a great time and usually with some art project. Atajinae is awesome and runs this program well. Highly recommend. And it is $5 cheaper for the sibling.

  4. It sounds so tempting, but we don’t want our kids watching media until they are older. If there were a media free option, we would totally try it.

    • There’s always other fun stuff going on. If you can compel your kids not to watch (big if, I realize), then they can do crafts, play in the bouncy house, scooter, run around screaming like banshees, etc. My daughter is allowed movies but usually opts out.

  6. We have used it most every time it’s been on. Very nice people running it. It’s not going to be for every parenting philosophy or every child but a really good neighborhood service at a reasonable cost that allows parents to grab a nice Friday evening dinner on Cortland.

    Our kids are early birds, as are we, so we’ve tended to drop them at 6 on the dot and then pick up right after dinner, usually not later than 8-8:30. They don’t put on the movie until later when all the kids get tired so even parents who prefer no media could get a nice dinner in and pick up before they run the movies.

    I am unsure as to the exact age limit but I am pretty sure I haven’t seen very little people under the age of 3.

    The feeling I get from Atajinae, the lady who runs it, is that she really wants to work with the parent community to make something that really is helpful and she is totally open to feedback and requests.

    If Bernalwood could announce it a few days in advance each month I think that would be great for awareness? It’s really SO NICE to get out for a quiet bite and not have to shell out $80-100 to a sitter—also, we always feel like we need to go out for at least four hours when we have a sitter just because we’ve gone to the trouble of arranging it and they’ve gone to the trouble of coming etc. etc. So I like that we can just use this for two hours, eat locally and head home nice and early and get kids to bed at a reasonable hour.

    Hope this helps,
    Maria

  9. It’s amazing that people find things to complain about this chance to have a night off and leave kids in a safe, fun environment that’s 25% the cost of a regular babysitter.

Comments are closed.