Places to Go, Things to Do

Earth Day, Fitness Weekend and more

April has a number of major events and activities especially suited to St. Louis area kids and their families. There's Earth Day, the St. Louis Marathon's Family Fitness Weekend and the start of both Trailnet family bike rides and GO Fish fishing lessons.

And, early in May, there's the St. Louis Storytelling Festival, with a special time for kid storytellers.

(Each month, Young Saint Louis.com runs information about events and programs in which kids and their families can participate. Many of those fun activities are either free or with low-cost admissions.)

Details on these and other activities and events in April are:

Earth Day Festival

The St. Louis Earth Day Festival will be held Sunday, April 22, on the Muny grounds in Forest Park. Hours are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

This will be the l8th annual festival and it occurs this year on the same date as the national Earth Day.

The theme for this year's local festival is "Living Green." The emphasis is on things that can be done to make our world more environmentally friendly.

There are two stages for musical entertainment. An Eco-Art section will show types of hands-on recycled art activities. The Tower Grove's Farmers' Market will offer produce and herb and vegetable plants.

For details of the schedule, visit www.stlouisearthday.org.

 

Family Fitness Weekend

The St. Louis Marathon's Family Fitness Weekend will be Saturday and Sunday, April 14-15, in Forest Park.

One of the features is the windup of the yearlong Read, Right & Run Marathon for school kids in the metro area. Those final runs will be held on Saturday, April 14.

This year, the kids in grades K-5 will start their final mile run at 7:30 a.m. The grades 6-8 participants will start their 5K finale at 8:45 a.m.

The younger kids are winding up the full marathon distance after running one mile a week for 25 weeks. The older kids ran 2 miles a week over the 25-week period and will end up having run a double marathon distance.

On the Fitness Weekend there are a variety of one-time fun runs of varying distances for kids and adults. The regular St. Louis Marathon races also are held this weekend.

For detailed information, visit www.stlouismarathon.com.

Trailnet bike rides

Trailnet's 2007 Calendar of Rides gets underway in April. The schedule lists organized rides for each month through October. Many of them are especially for kids and their families.

Two rides in April are the "Flat as a Floodplain Bicycle Ride" on Sunday, April 15, and the "Spring Chicken Bicycle Ride" on Sunday, April 29. The "floodplain" ride starts in St. Charles while the "chicken" ride will begin in St. Libory, Ill.

For details on these rides, visit www.trailnet.org.

Also, pick up a booklet listing all the 2007 Trailnet rides. You can obtain the printed schedule from a bike shop near you.

GO FISH lessons

Starting April 1, the Missouri Department of Conservation will hold a series of special GO FISH lessons for kids at three St. Louis area lakes.

Kids from 8 to 15 are invited to attend seven fishing classes. If the kids complete all lessons, they'll get enough fishing gear to handle just about any fishing occasion. The gear will be free as are the lessons.

Kids don't have to have fishing licenses to participate.

The fishing instruction will be at the Bellefontaine Conservation Area in north St. Louis County, Forest Park in the City of St. Louis and Suson Park in south St. Louis County.

Experienced fishermen will conduct the lessons.

For information, call (314) 441-4554. (Also, Young Saint Louis.com ran a complete story about this program in the March edition. To see that, click here.)

Mobile Fish Aquarium

The Show-Me Missouri Fish Mobile Aquarium comes to St. Louis for showings on April 21-22 at the Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center in Kirkwood. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days and admission is free.

Twenty-fish species of fish natural to Missouri will be on display in huge tanks that measure 40 feet in length and hold 3,200 gallons of water. The display is by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

The Fishin' Magicians who have appeared on ESPN will perform. Also, fisheries biologists will demonstrate fishing techniques each hour.

For information, call (636) 441-4554 or view www.mdc.mo.gov/fish/kids/mobileaqua/

The MDC offers many activities at its St. Louis facilities.

For Busch Conservation area events, visit http://mdc.mo.gov/areas/cnc/busch/.

For Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area, visit www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/areas/bottom/.

For Rockwoods Reservation, visit www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/stlouis.

For more Powder Valley activities, visit www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/cnc/powder.

For the Busch Range and Education Center, visit www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/ranges/busch.

For the Henges Range, visit www.mdc.mo.gov/areas/ranges/henges.

Volunteer gardeners needed

The St. Louis County Parks department is looking for volunteers who would like to help maintain and improve county parks. The department also is offering a variety of gardening classes.

For instance, the parks department is looking for volunteers who'd like to help with "spring gardening chores." These volunteers work alongside with parks department Master Gardeners.

For information, call Sue Kehnert at (314) 638-2100 or e-mail skuhnert@stlouisco.com.

For a listing of other county park activities through August, visit www.stlouisco.com.

Storytelling Festival

Be sure to set aside time to attend the St. Louis Storytelling Festival on May 2-5. Nationally known and regional storytellers will be featured, along with kid storytellers.

An Evening of Family Storytelling will be held Thursday, May 3, at the Brentwood Community Center. The event starts at 7 p.m.

On Saturday, May 5, a Youth Storytelling Concert is planned for the University City Public Library. Kids in grades 5-12 will perform. The event starts at 10 a.m.

Events are held at various venues around St. Louis. For total festival information, visit www.umsl.edu/storytelling.