Free Cape Girardeau event helps children prepare for school
FOX23 News at 9 p.m
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) — A free back-to-school community event returned to the Cape Girardeau Arena Building for its fifth year, helping families prepare for the new school year.
Kenitha Pittman, owner of VIP Loc Studio, has hosted the Back-to-School Community Day for Kids for five years. Tanyana Ivy, a Realtor with Main Key Realty, has helped organize the event for the past two years.
“I’ve been doing the event for five years now. She’s been doing it with me for two years, and we just really want to give back to the community and send the kids home, back to school with haircuts, hairdos, school supplies and whatever we can help with to help our community,” Pittman said.
Community volunteers provided free haircuts, hairstyles and nail painting at the Arena Building. Families could also pick up school supplies and enjoy free food.
Ivy said the event helps families who may not have the means to cover every back-to-school expense.
“These events are very important for the community because everybody doesn’t have — everybody don’t have the means to get what the kids need to go to school. Everybody doesn’t have the means to actually get their hair cut, get their hair done. And a lot of these stylists, they get booked ahead of time. So we just try to figure out a way to give back,” Ivy said.
The community day is one of several events Pittman organizes for local children. She also hosts a block party near the end of the school year.
“We have a block party at the end of the school year. So it’s like an end-of-the-school-year block party to just, you know, once again, give back to the community, allow the kids to let their hair down, you know, from a long school year that they’ve had and just bounce on the bounce house. There’s free food and everything. So that’s at either the end of May or the beginning of June. So be looking out for that as well,” Pittman said.
Ivy said businesses and community members can support future events by sponsoring, setting up a table or volunteering. She said people do not have to be professional barbers or braiders to help.
“If anybody wants to ever come sponsor, if they want to come set up a table, then we do make space for that,” Ivy said.
Pittman hopes the event continues to grow and shows families that people in their community care about them.
“I hope they take away that there are people out there that care about their community. I hope people pull together for the community, come together a little bit more, you know, just to make it a bigger event every year, just to give back,” Pittman said.
