By Melanie Rossi
Contributing Writer
GREEN BAY – On June 26, during Green Bay’s 2023 Kids’ Day, one lucky kid will have the opportunity to be the “Mayor for the Day.”
All school-aged children aged 6-18 are welcome to apply, and the winner will be randomly selected.
As Mayor for the Day, the selected kid will get to spend the day with Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich, participate in the day’s events and complete certain mayoral duties, such as receiving a badge and attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
James Andersen, deputy director of Green Bay’s Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department, said that the selected kid “will get to do a lot of the activities that, on a typical day, a mayor could be experiencing and responsible for.”
First, through a proclamation, Genrich will welcome the new mayor and give them their official lanyard or name badge.
Then, after attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the new bike skills course at Triangle Hill in Baird Creek, the “mayor” will get to participate in a lot of the activities open to all youth, including the mayor’s luncheon.
Andersen added, “[The selected kid] will kind of just do a bunch of things that relate to or revolve around the city and all the different departments, people and organizations that you encounter throughout your day when you’re the mayor.”
To allow for easier organization, the parents of the chosen kid will get to play a large part in determining their child’s schedule.
“What we always do is we contact the parents and we plan out the day with them, depending on the age of the child and what their interests are; we try to match up what they do throughout the day with things they like to do and are going to be excited about,” Andersen said.
The opportunity to be Mayor for the Day, Andersen said, grants the winning kid a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially since they get to be the mayor of “the number one city in the nation right now.
“We just saw the poll come out, and that’s a pretty big accomplishment and an honorable award, so getting to experience what the mayor of Green Bay would do on a day-to-day basis and get to be a part of that is special,” Andersen added.
Whether the child plans to go into politics or solely wants to be able to engage with the community, Andersen said the winning kid gets to see Green Bay through the perspective of someone with such an important role.
“The mayor probably sees [Green Bay] from a different lens than maybe a kid would, so they can kind of see how this stuff comes to life,” he stated.
“The event itself is just a one-of-a-kind community event. There’s so much to do throughout the day—you could plan your morning till evening. And if you’re a kid, you know there’s Mother’s Day and there’s Father’s Day, but we thought in Green Bay that there should be a Kids’ Day, so that’s why we proclaimed it.”
Applications to be Mayor for the Day are open online now until Thursday, June 20, at 10 a.m.
For more on Kids’ Day, visit https://greenbaywi.gov/Calendar.aspx?EID=4901.