The sun shone over a cool breeze Tuesday afternoon. For many parents, this was the perfect time to take their kids outside and enjoy a break from the impending summer heat. Multiple Elizabethton organizations had them covered.

Over 150 home-schooled children gathered at Elizabethton Parks and Recreation’s baseball fields Tuesday afternoon to participate in a variety of Field Day activities.

Carter County Drug Prevention Director Jilian Reece said the Field Day started with the Youth Board last year.

“It is definitely something exciting,” Reece said. “We are doing something the community enjoys.”

Children as young as pre-K all the way to high school seniors participated in a number of different activities, including kickball, sack races and tug-of-war.

Each participant wore a purple T-shirt with an anti-drug message on it, promoting the Field Day’s overall theme.

“This is also a fun way to do some education in a fun way,” she said.

For example one of the activities was a relay race in which participants had to run from one end of the field to the other while holding a straw between their teeth, highlighting how smoking makes it harder to perform certain physical activities.

“We want to plant that seed,” she said. “Hopefully, when we talk about these things, they can make good decisions as they grow.”

Reece said the collaborative efforts in bringing the Field Day together were also a special part of the experience.

“I love the collaboration,” Reece said. “I could not do this on my own; the Youth Board could not do this on their own.”

The Elizabethton/Carter County Library, Elizabethton Parks and Recreation and the Health Department all pitched in to make the event a success, Reece said.

Her favorite collaboration that day, however, was the participants themselves.

“I love to watch the older kids mentor and help the younger kids,” she said. “All these people coming together, it is really what creates change, when we can collaborate.”