WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — The Walton County Library is working with the Walton County Health Department to improve wellness in the community.
On Tuesday, they unveiled a new project at Padgett Park in Santa Rosa Beach.
Padgett Park now has a “Trail Tale.”
It features interactive story posts along the trail’s path for children and parents.
They are hoping it will increase children’s literacy skills while promoting exercise.
“Trail tales have been installed all over the country and successfully we are not reinventing the wheel here,” Walton County Library Director Caitie Cerise said. “This is a brand new initiative for this area of Walton County.”
Walton County has already integrated a “Trail Tale” in its parks before.
The first one was installed at Wee Care Park in DeFuniak with a story from a local author.
“The whole partnership that we’ve got with the library and doing this has been really instrumental,” Walton County Health Department Health Officer Holly Holt said. “I’ve heard a lot of different people coming to me and they’re saying, ‘that’s a wonderful project we’d like to have it in the south end.’ We’re also hoping to bring it to the north in some other areas of the community.”
The Walton County Library partners with the Walton County Department of Health and Walton County Parks and Recreation.
Cerise said they want to encourage multi-generational learning.
“We look for our children to be able to come out with their parents, with their grandparents, with their caregivers, each of the posts has an action or a question of comprehension to be able to bring up conversations and talking so that people are working together,” Cerise said. “The children and adults are working together to be able to experience the outdoors.”
The stories will change quarterly.
“This story called ‘The Big Dance’ is about a father and a daughter who were able to get out and learn about inclusion and finding the dance within them and finding your place where you belong,” Cerise said.
The Walton County Department of Health said the project is a part of one of their strategic priorities for community wellness in the county.
