The three through six crowd in their first youth soccer scrimmage.

Friday March 18, the hottest ticket in town for the 12 and under crowd was the 1^st Annual Spring Fling sponsored by the Fannin County Recreation Department.  Spring Fling 2016 kicked off the busiest sport season of the year for the Recreation Department, which hosts soccer, softball and baseball during the spring.

Shannon York

The evening featured scrimmages between different teams all the way from ages 3-6 soccer and t-ball to 12 year old softball and baseball.  Between scrimmages, kids swarmed, rolled, scrambled, scaled, crawled and tumbled their way through bounce houses.  The evening closed with a parade of athletes and fireworks.  Shannon York, a local singer, played music for the event.  Fannin County Recreation Department Director, John Scalera wanted there to be something for everyone from the kids scrimmaging to their siblings accompanying them to their parents looking for a laid-back Friday night when they could listen to live music without having to hire a babysitter.  Mr. Scalera decided to create the event, the first of its kind, to build community within the parents.

John Scalera, Fannin County Recreation Department Director

Indeed, when FetchYourNews.com asked various parents what they liked about the event, they said they enjoyed the sense of community.  Mary Beth Deal said that her kids were really enjoying it and is glad that a community event like this exists.   According to FetchYourNews.com pup reporter Joseph, on Friday pre-K was abuzz with talks of meeting up with each other to tumble their ways through bouncy houses and seeing the cool fireworks at night.  After the evening he said that it was the greatest party ever with cool things like bouncy houses and fireworks.

Mary Beth Deal and daughter Sadie.

Other community organizations helped out at the event.  Kim Cheeves, Children’s Director at The Ridge Community Church.  She says, “We are always about serving the community and the kids.  We want them to know that just because you grow up, you are not outside our circle of influence.” Erin Golden, who palys soccer and accompanied her mom and grandmother to the event thinks the Spring Fling is a great idea because it is getting the community together and excited about the season.

It seems that the only ones who didn’t enjoy the Spring Fling was some horses corralled nearby.   They broke out of their fence and escaped when the fireworks started.  The horses returned home later.