Writing a story is like taking a walk with your imagination. Come take a walk with us in Yamhill!
This year we established a new space in a local park. We created a connecting trail to the existing walking and dog trail. It was a cloudy day with breaks of sunshine. The newly mowed park space was perfect for all the family activities. We envisioned lots of new opportunities to make this park more accessible and open to the neighborhood and community. We had a great turn out for fun, dog-face painting. A bounce house for the super energetic. Others tried our new path while reading the interconnected story posts for a more meandering outing. Perhaps they read the fun story starters during their walk and pondered stories of their own.
Everyone is excited the new park space looks out to the historic Bunn House. This old farm is the place where young Beverly Cleary grew up among various animals. The vision for the new Ribsy's Dog Park of Yamhill, as illustrated by local artist Kimberly Howell, will
continue as planned. Working with the City of Yamhill and pursuing future grants, the Yamhill Downtown Association is closer to making the dog park a reality. Currently the walking trail is a little over a half mile and it is a dog friendly space. After seeking input from local dog owners, they have added to the excitement to have a fun local connection to Beverly Cleary, literacy, kids, and dogs.
It is our hope that children, families, homeschool and school groups will come to Yamhill to enjoy the walking tour and visit this friendly park for some inspiration with childhood and even story writing. It is designed to be a great literary fieldtrip to engage learners of all ages in literacy, history and writing of their own stories.
Please come visit Yamhill! Take the Beverly Cleary Literary Walking Tour. Brochures with a walking tour map can be found at The Larson house and on this website. Contact the YDA if you would like to have a field trip packet for your homeschool or school tour. It is enjoyable on your own, but if you would like brochures for a group and activity pages, along with suggestions for food in the area, the YDA would love to accommodate. www.yamhilldowntown.com
The walking tour includes six local outdoor posts in a three block radius. The tour now extends behind Yamhill City Public Works along the drive to the park with three more signs, all very scenic for story writers to find inspiration. How did Beverly come up with some of her stories? Check it out on the signs that share: What did Beverly do? Get ready to write a story.
Keep a look out! This summer there may be more community events to further the dog park. We'd love to have you join us!
Story Contest! Check out our cool title winners for this year's story contest! We had forty writers this year and thirty-eight color page contestants! Every participant was awarded a t-shirt this year and prizes went to the top five stories and color pages. Prizes will be mailed or delivered to participating schools.
Here are the titles of the winners! These awesome kid stories were all about dogs for this year's theme!
Top Winning Stories!
Bananas Story
Found Dog
A New Home
The Golden Bone
The Glow-in-the-Dark Baseball
Honorable Mentions
My Bad Paw
Husky's Rule
A Dog in Time
Supa Cute Dog
Cal the Super Dog