The Williamson County and Cities Health District (WCCHD) is gearing up for the 6th Annual Children’s Health Festival on Saturday, March 8 at the Dell Diamond United Heritage Center. WCCHD is partnering with the Round Rock Express, area news media, and local organizations that have an interest in children’s health and safety to present the Sixth Annual Children’s Health Festival.

This year’s event will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, at the United Heritage Center at Round Rock’s Dell Diamond. The festival is free and open to the public. The festival highlights the importance of physical activity, healthy eating, and safety. This year the festival will focus particularly on encouraging parents and children to “play for the health of it.”

There are many children in Williamson County who are uninsured or underinsured. With that in mind, WCCHD originally wanted to design an event for families who were uninsured or underinsured. The goal was to give them a place to apply for these insurance programs as well as gain access to additional information on resources available in their community. The district sponsored its first Children’s Health Festival in 2002, during the annual awareness campaign for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Children’s Medicaid Program. Since then, many other agencies and organizations have joined in to help make important health, safety, and nutrition information and resources available to all families in Williamson County.

This year’s event continues those partnerships and builds new ones. Again this year, KVUE News Anchor Melissa Gale returns for a sixth year as the festival’s mistress of ceremonies. Local news media, including: Mix 94.7, Majic 95.5, Talk Radio 1370 a.m., as well as Recuerdo 107.7 and La Que Buena 104.3 are helping ensure that information about children’s health and the health festival reaches as many people as possible.

WCCHD also is welcoming several new sponsors this year: Seton Medical Center Williamson, St. David’s Community Health Foundation and Ideal Signs.