We love this Screen-Free Week celebration in Frederick, MD, where the entire town gets in on the fun! In their video blog, Dr. Alison Bomba and Occupational Therapist Kelly Beins explain why they teamed up to create Screen-FREE Frederick.
AB: Hi, I’m Dr. Alison Bomba, child psychologist. I own a private practice in Frederick, Maryland.
KB: And I’m Kelly Beins, I’m an occupational therapist here in Frederick, and I’m also a private practice owner.
AB: So, last summer, Kelly and I decided that we wanted to host Frederick’s very first community-wide Screen-Free Week. Which sounded like a very daunting task, that’s why we’re doing it together. But we’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.
KB: We have, and we were really excited to be able to share with you guys some of the things that we’ve done to make Screen-Free Week doable and possible here in Frederick.
AB: We started with the creation of a Facebook page, for Screen-FREE Week Frederick, which is totally ironic but that’s the way to reach people – social media. We also reached out to our personal and professional contacts and community leaders to get them involved and excited. And we hosted an interview day, in which we spent the whole day in our downtown with our fake microphone that we’ve created and our t-shirts, interviewing people on the street and local business owners about the importance of balancing screen time.
KB: And one of the big goals that we set for ourselves at the beginning of this process was we would make it as big or as small as we wanted to. And being business owners ourselves, there isn’t a lot of time, and so the Facebook page has allowed us to do something consistent that isn’t really difficult, and the interview day allowed us to not only have fun with it, but connect with a lot of people in a short amount of time. And I will say, the fake microphone was kind of a …
AB: Big hit. So we’re keeping it light, we’re keeping it fun, we’re keeping people engaged throughout the year. So we’re essentially acting as a clearinghouse, our goal is to help promote events that are already taking place that are screen-free during Screen-Free Week. We’re also asking people to host events. We’re not going to do the hosting. We’ll make appearances at some of them, we’ll promote their events, so it’s a win-win.
KB: And, when we were downtown, we had printed up – in addition to the wonderful fake microphone – business cards. And so these business cards we could give to the business owners or the people that we met on the street. And then in our private practices…
AB: We’ve created flyers, and this is a nice easy way for people to distribute information to their own clients about Screen-Free Week. So just trying to get the word out.
KB: Yep. And so basically our message is, it’s doable, it’s fun, and there are things that you’re already doing, I’m sure, in your life that can be consistent with and support Screen-Free Week.
AB: So it has been easy and very fun to tap into our resources that already exist in our community and ask them to host an event, to help share our Facebook page, to get people on board with Screen-Free Week.
KB: So we hope that you’ll have as much fun as we have in organizing a Screen-Free Week, hope that everybody is successful in their quest for unplugged parenting and screen-free fun.
Screen-Free Week 2019 is April 29 – May 5. Make sure you register your event here!