Hundreds of children, along with state lawmakers, attended the 30th annual Children’s Day at the Florida Capitol on Tuesday.
Erin Smeltzer, President and CEO of the Children’s Forum, an organizer for the event, said the 2025 theme is “Keep Blooming Florida” with a focus on neurodivergent children.
“We are really looking at encouraging all kids to be able to dream and grow and thrive in Florida,” Smeltzer said. “We’re doing a lot of work with children with special needs to make sure that they have the appropriate accommodations.”
This year, Children’s Day – part of what is now Children’s Week – featured a new and more inclusive element: the Storybook Garden. Similar to the traditional Storybook Village offering, the garden is a space targeting children with disabilities.
What’s Children’s Day?
Every year during the legislative session, the Capitol becomes a playground with vendors and interactive exhibits and performances in the courtyard, to a gallery of children’s artwork in the capitol lobby and rotunda.
This year, children were able to learn about planting produce, growing flowers and the insects that pollinate the gardens through various activities. Wheelbarrows were filled with plastic vegetables that kids dug up with shovels to harvest and then replant.
Other booths provided children with the tools to make bookmarks, bracelets and even illustrate their own books.
Perhaps the best known feature is the “Hanging of the Hands,” in which thousands of paper cut-outs of Florida children’s hands hanging down the three-story high Capitol Rotunda.
The hands are meant to ask legislators to ‘give children a hand’ on any legislation that may affect their health and safety.
This story contains previously published material. Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter/X: @AlaijahBrown3.
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