Dozens of mothers and their preschool-age kids once again gathered at the Congregation Beth Shalom temple on Friday for a special snow day celebration.
The event takes place every year on the Friday before Mother’s Day and involves a snow-spewing contraption that was set up to bring winter to the desert.
Jay Siegel, rabbi at Beth Shalom, emphasized the importance of celebrating Mother’s Day.
“It’s really a day to celebrate those who are mentors, those who go before us, those who are in our lives that help us to be better people that help us to truly kind of make our dreams a reality,” he said. “Mother’s Day is really important because it makes a statement that nothing we do in our lives can ever be done alone.”
Carol Bloom, the preschool director of Congregation Beth Shalom, also expressed the significance of the event and being a parent.
“That’s who we are, that’s what we live to be,” Bloom said. “It’s so important for our children to have that time. Just even if it’s only an extra 15 minutes playing in the snow with their moms. It’s a special day that they all remember.”
The snow day celebration is an annual fundraising event for the temple, with all the funds raised going directly to its child care programs.
So how do you make it snow in Santa Clarita? According to Arctic Glacier Premium Ice, it takes a lot of ice, a refrigerated semi-truck, and a snowmaker. 300-pound blocks of ice are then fed into a machine that acts sort of like a tree trimmer.
Whatever it took, the kids didn’t seem to mind and neither did the parents. Judith Swingler, a mother originally from Houston, Texas at the event, said it was wonderful.
“I think it’s just really fun, I’m not from California originally and it’s funny because I feel like only in (Los Angeles) can you get a snow machine that makes snow for the movies and you get to bring it to school for kids to enjoy and we don’t get snow here except for this year,” said Swingler. “But we don’t get snow here (usually) and it’s such a fun event for the kids — it’s time for us all to kind of bond and be happy together before the summer comes in pummels us with the heat.”