We LOVE having fun.
We love it so much that we not only want to experience it ourselves, but we want to bring it to as many people in and around Richmond as we can. We believe that play is an integral part of life, and can be the best motivator for good behavior, good character development, and even hard work that there is. Even so, we also know that it can be a little hard to come by in our day-to-day lives.
Whether you’re a person with Special Needs, or a parent, sibling, or friend of someone who has a Special Need, we know that the need for fun in your lives can be just a great, and often even harder to come by. Knowing that, we started our Special Needs / Sensory Friendly nights as one small effort in the midst of all the challenges of life to help serve those in our community that want to have fun as much as we do, but may find it more challenging sometimes.
In an effort to make the Sky Zone experience more palatable for jumpers with Special Needs or Sensory issues, we change things up one night a month to be as accommodating as we can. We turn off the dance music, dial down the lights, and open up our party rooms as a small space to get a little extra space from the din of a building full of trampolines. In these small ways, we hope to offer a much gentler exposure to all of the craziness we love while still letting jumpers aim for the sky and spend some time flying through the air.
Here at Sky Zone, we have three pillars that we try to build everything upon, and those three pillars are (1) Awesome, (2) Healthy, and (3) Fun. Awesome because it’s a word we hear often around our trampolines (and we say it all the time, too!). We hear it when jumpers talk about their experience of flying through the air in a dodgeball match, or bouncing off a wall trampoline for the first time, or finally landing a dunk on our tallest hoop, and we love encouraging those thrills to all who come jump.
Healthy is another one of our three pillars, and we mean it. And not just physical health, too but emotional, relational, and mental health as well. We know that you can burn 1,000 calories in an hour just by jumping (to compare, according to runnersworld.com, a 150-pound person would have to run almost 9 miles in an hour to match that). But we also know that jumping on a trampoline reduces stress levels, helps alleviate depression, and encourages vestibular system input which improves balance and spatial awareness. And jumping with friends and family helps develop relationships that last.
So take a chance to embrace fun and plan to come out to our next Special Needs / Sensory Friendly Night on Monday, May 4th from 5pm-6pm! We do it the first Monday of every month that we aren’t open for a special holiday. That way we can make sure to tailor the experience to our most special jumpers. Be sure to come a little early to get checked in and fill out waivers if you haven’t in the last year, and remember that for each Special Needs jumper you get a ticket for, you get a free caretaker ticket as well! And we encourage you to bring out siblings and close friends of Special Needs jumpers as well. We want everyone involved to join in the fun and come fly with us!
