Copperas Cove H-E-B celebrates back to school with Kids Day

By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press

Copperas Cove’s H-E-B Plus! treated families to a variety of fun, family-friendly activities this Saturday.

The celebration, which went from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., included a petting zoo, and each of the various H-E-B departments hosted fun activities.

Graciela Velazquez, area communications coordinator for H-E-B, said that Kid’s Day is a company-wide activity but that each store was able to choose their own theme. The
Copperas Cove store chose the theme, “storybook tales”.

Cove H-E-B partners dressed up as a variety of characters including many from “Alice in Wonderland”, Miss Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus”, Sebastian from “The Little Mermaid”, and more.

Activities included planting seeds, folding origami flowers, decorating (and eating!) cookies, decorating shopping bags, lobster petting, feeding “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, and more.

“Last year was the first year that we did this company-wide, and obviously the goal is to make it even better each year for the kids,” said Kaci Haagsma, an H-E-B partner who helped with planning the event. “It’s a big passion of mine…Everybody just jumped right in and we had a lot of fun with it. We’re exhausted, but it was so worth it! The kids were so excited to see the fire trucks and then come inside to play with the lobsters. The squeals and the screams of the kids from the lobster petting was probably my favorite.”

She said that they encourage the kids each year to dress up for the event. She said that she loved seeing how much fun the kids, families, and even the H-E-B employees had with the event.

“I thought it was really cute,” said Karee Rogers who brought her 2-year-old daughter, Meilah Stinson, to the Kids Day event. “That’s why I love H-E-B. You can get shopping done while the kids have fun…It’s sweet of them to do it.”