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An easy way to find fun, family-friendly things to do in Tampa Bay area

#raisinglocal in the Sunshine City

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Finding fun, family-friendly things to do across the bay area seems like an easy task. But it's easy to fall into the same routine and you really could be missing out on some hidden local gems. It's good to know two St. Pete moms have you covered, putting all this information into one place.

"We started Sunshine City Kids in an effort to organize our own lives. It was summer break, my kids were young and at home and every day we just looked for something to do and we knew things were happening on a regular basis," said Vandi Carmella.

"We just want to do everything we can to make it easier to find fun things like this around the city and having it all in one place makes it so much less stressful to go out and do fun things with your kids," said Carmella.

"Vandi and I aren't actually from St. Pete, but our kids were born and are being raised here so we kind of came up with #raisinglocal. So we do things like try to keep everything local," said Denielle Kennett.

"Our kids are growing up here and I think it's really cool that they are growing up in this where people come to visit and people come to vacation, but this is their home and they're the locals here now and we're really proud of that," said Carmella.

"I always want to support local any chance I get and watching these kids come in, this is our 12th year in business, so we had kids that come in at 6 months old and now they're 11 or 12 years old. I've seen them grow," said Gabe Whitney, with Noisemakers

"Noisemakers, for example, is a little St. Pete staple. I used to bring my daughter here when she was 6 months old just to tap on the drums and now she goes anywhere and she's familiar with all the parks and the play areas and the museums. She's a local to St. Pete now. We like to kind of keep everything and support our local community," said Kennett.

"It's amazing to watch their eyes light up when they realize a drum beat or like I can hit this and make a sound like this or I can play the guitar, I hold it this way. They learn just like one chord and their eyes light up. It's amazing," said Whitney.

"This is absolutely encouraging family time, it's just how we can look at one calendar and say let's plan our weekend and this way we're not sitting on the couch. We're out doing cool things. St. Petersburg is such a family-friendly place and this is just a way to find it all in one place,"  said Carmella.

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