Before getting caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, Cameron Maneese of the Wayne County Family and Children First Council wants families to set aside some time to acknowledge the importance of family by commemorating National Family Week from Nov. 20-26.
National Family Week allows us to take a moment during the Thanksgiving week to acknowledge the importance of family and how family is the centerpiece of all we do, Maneese told the Wayne County commissioners during their Nov. 9 regular session.
Maneese sees the commemoration of National Family Week as the perfect fit for her organization – the Wayne County Family and Children First Council, which is a partnership of government agencies and community organizations committed to improving the well-being of children and families.
We are family centered and family driven in what we do and how we program, said Maneese, noting that her organizations programs include everything from the Parenting Points radio show to workshops for the parents of children with dyslexia.
When we found out about National Family Week we felt that we needed to acknowledge that, Maneese told the commissioners.
For Maneese, Thanksgiving presents the perfect opportunity to bring families together.
Thanksgiving is the best time for us to draw together. People are going to be traveling all over, most of them coming home to celebrate as a family and sit around the dinner table, said Maneese.
With that in mind, to celebrate National Family Week we have created something called the family storyteller, said Maneese as she distributed the same folded paper fortune-tellers to the commissioners that will be distributed to all third-grade students throughout Wayne County in the coming days.
According to Maneese, her organization has adapted this childhood favorite into a family storyteller designed to stimulate conversation around the dinner table.
As family members drill down into the various levels of the fortune-teller, they will be prompted to respond to questions on favorite vacations, favorite foods and favorite teachers and take part in activities such as playing a game or watching a movie.
Generations have been making these, said Maneese of the fortune-tellers.
We find that parents remember how to make them and their parents remember how to make them, said Maneese, adding, thats a conversation in and of itself.
The whole point is for families to remember some of those conversations that we sometimes forget in the hurry and the bustle and the craziness that is our day, said Maneese, noting that National Family Week allows families to pause, to take time and to enjoy each others company.
By declaring Nov. 20-26 as National Family Week, the Wayne County commissioners join Ohio Gov. John Kasich, President Barack Obama, and a host of local government entities across the country in a national celebration of the importance of family.
National Family Week is coordinated nationally by the Alliance for Children and Families, a nonprofit national membership association of private, nonprofit human service providers in the United States and Canada.
According to the Alliances website, National Family Week was founded in 1968 by Sam Wiley, a teacher and administrator in Indianapolis. The Alliance for Children and Families began partnering with Wiley two years later to promote the celebration among its members and the human services field.
Observed each year during the week of Thanksgiving, National Family Week is designed to build community connections and honor those who strengthen families.
For more information on the Wayne County Family and Children First Council, log on to http://www.waynefcfc.org.
Information on National Family Week can be found at the Alliance for Children and Families website at http://www.alliance1.org.
