Mardi Gras starts early for children at Danyelle’s

VILLE PLATTE -- The Courir de Mardi Gras came a few days early.
Danyelle’s Early Development Center held its annual “Chicken-Quail Run” on Friday morning. Dozens upon dozens of small children, aged 3-5, joyously took part in the event that drew a large crowd of parents, with cameras and camcorders to record the moments.
“I came up with the idea because I wanted to teach them our Cajun tradition,” owner Danyelle Reed said.
All the children were dressed in their own homemade costumes and masks, while many rode little toy wooden horses while chasing down quails.
“I couldn’t do this without the wonderful parent participation,” Reed said. “They handle everything. They make all the costumes and buy the toy horses. I just provided the birds.”
There were a total of four different runs, with different children designated as farmers, a captain and the band of masked children on horseback. After the captain gives the signal to the other riders, the children pretend to gallop to chase down the quails who have been released by the children playing the farmer roles.
After the quails were collected, the children were instructed to bring the quails to the gumbo pot (which was not actually lit) and then begin dancing.
Afterwards, children and parents alike took part in eating some King Cake.
Even though there were a few hiccups, a quail escaped through the chain-link fence, a few kids shed tears due to not catching anything, and a few simply got bored and played on the swing set and slide, the event was a huge success.
“We do lots of activities with the kids,” Reed said. “We take lots of field trips. We try to make it fun. At the end of the day, the kids all want to participate in it.”