FLORENCE, Ky. — With air quality alerts still in place, some outdoor programs in Kentucky have had to adjust plans this summer.

“If the kids were supposed to be, on that high alert day, outside all day, we might bring them inside,” said YMCA of Greater Cincinnati President and CEO Jorge Perez. “The members themselves who don’t like, sometimes, the kids being inside of the building, we’ve been keeping them up to date in terms of why the kids are inside more than outside. And they understand.”

Perez said it’s been a challenge adapting to the air quality alerts, which have been lingering all summer because of wildfires in Canada.

Perez said the YMCA has to constantly monitor those alerts and be in communication with parents, especially those of kids who are more vulnerable, such as those with asthma.

“Make sure Billy or Sam is inside most of the day. Or they may keep them home that day,” Perez said.

Child care centers and senior programs have also had to completely stop outdoor activities at times. And it isn’t always easy, Perez said, to tell kids at summer camp they have to go inside.

“If we were gonna sing and dance and play games outside, but now we have to do that inside, we want to transport the fun indoors, so we’ve trained the staff to do that. The pandemic has been a good training ground for that over the last several years. And we do have some real challenges in trying to catch these kids up,” he said.

At the end of the day, Perez said kids just want to know if their friend is coming with them when they come inside.

“And whether we’re going to sing ‘Do your ears hang low?’ for the fourth time,” he added.

So far it’s worked. Perez said there haven’t been any incidents relating to the air quality.