Children in Niverville now have less distance to travel to participate in sport programs thanks to Activate Sports, a Winnipeg-based company which is making a move into rural parts of the province.
The company was founded in 2017 by Erin Boissonneault and gives kids as young as eighteen months the opportunity to participate in sports.
“We encourage and hope to inspire kids to think about being active every day in the hopes that they will continue to be throughout their lifetime,” says Boissonneault.
The Activate Sports program not only encourages engagement during the 45-minute sessions, but also throughout the week using activity logs. Parents are urged to participate by recording every time they spent 20 minutes doing activities with their child. After 20 days of activities, the child gets to pick a prize, which could be anything from a free kids meal at Boston Pizza to a free Activate session.
With three young kids of her own, Boissonneault faced the reality that there simply weren’t enough physical activity options for kids under the age of three, even in a city. So she decided to create those opportunities herself. A year later, Activate Sports started their first class.
“Our first session started with 45 kids, and we now have at least 130 kids in each session,” she says of Activate’s quick success. “We have also expanded our services to include birthday parties and after-school programs.”
Activate not only offers classes to kids between the age of eighteen months and six years, its curriculum also introducing kids to a variety of different sports: tennis, baseball, volleyball, soccer, and golf.
“Our number one goal is to encourage kids to live an active lifestyle,” says Boissonneault. “Playing various sports allows for kids to try out different sports and see what they like. If they have an idea of what each sport is and how to play it, they are more likely to play it again or later in life.”
The program offers children the opportunity to test out the equipment or move to music before each lesson starts. Then the kids are taken through a warm-up consisting of songs, activities, and games. At the end of the class, Boissonneault says, “we always play a game to put into practise what we learned. We also talk a lot about cheering each other on and being a team.”
With the growing need for parents to not only connect with each other, but also to find programs in rural areas for preschool-aged children, Activate Sports has already had a great reaction to their program.
“Our goal from the beginning was to offer classes in Winnipeg and rural areas,” she says. “We have witnessed a large need for programming in many rural areas… We have had a great response from Niverville. We will also continue to look for more rural areas to offer classes.”
