The story of Action Kids

The story of Action Kids began in Nørholm, in 2008, when a father of three realised during his work as a volunteer sports coach, how difficult it can be to direct a bunch of children in the afternoon. He took the initiative to develop an activity program by conceptualising children’s play to create more fun and happiness surrounding physical exercise.

That became the beginning of cooperation between idea guy & project manager Thomas Fedder, artist & illustrator Ole Okkels, and composer Viggo Steincke.

The goal was to create a way to motivate children to be more active in a fun, playful and different way – and the result was Action Kids.

The pilot project "Action Kids at the Farm" became the first product developed with support from TrygFonden in 2012 and distibuted to all 31 kindergartens in Mariagerfjord Principality. The project consisted of a CD and an instructional booklet, creating the framework for 25 minutes of active play.

In December 2013 TrygFonden gave an additional 500.000 danish kroner in support to develop the Action Kids-package, involving three different Action Kids Universes: "Action Kids at the farm", Action Kids on a space trip" and "Action Kids on Zoofari".

In September 2014 A.P Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formål donated 500.000 danish kroner to the Action Kids Project. That meant that phase two: development finishing and exposure increase, now had begun. In May 2017 a donation from Jutlander Bank secured that 403 kindergartens in northern Jutland received Action Kids absolutely free.

The biggest breakthrough happened when A.P Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formål donated 1.500.000 danish kroner to a country wide distribution of Action Kids in 2018.

We are proud and happy in this small association, but also aware that it is a huge task ahead of us. We are looking for quite a few very large foundations to secure the million we lack in the budget to be able to distribute Action Kids to ALL Danish kindergartens – COMPLETELY free! Many rejections later, we chose a new path: We wanted to apply for smaller foundations and good companies in each municipality, since we could not get through to the large, nationwide foundations. That was the start of a long journey.

In September 2019 Middelfart Sparekasse also donated for the distribution of Action Kids til EVERY kindergarten in Middelfart Municipality.

Bjarne Jensens Fond also found the idéa brilliant, and donated penge for the distribution of Action Kids to EVERY kindergarten in Ringsted Kommune.

Frederiksberg Fonden sent money to Action Kids in December 2020. That meant that Thomas Fedder could visit EVERY 46 kindergartens in Frederiksberg to deliver Action Kids.

In December 2021 ELRO Fonden brought funding for distribution of Action Kids to EVERY kindergarten in Randers Municipality, Favrskov Municipality, Norddjurs Municipality, Syddjurs Municipality and Mariagerfjord Municipality.

But during the COVID-19 lockdown period in 2021, it was not always easy to keep a small business like ours afloat....

But Action Kids made it!

In all kinds of weather, the ACTIONboxes were delivered, as Thomas went on and island trip to Samsø Municipality and Ærø Municipality to deliver Action Kids to the islanders. The year ended with Action Kids being able to boast about being in 40 municipalities in Denmark!

Early in the morning of January 2022, the delivery continued, and 10(!!!) entire municipalities received their own ACTIONboxes, thanks to AP Møller Fonden. Hold on to your hats, because here comes a big listing: Dragør Municipality, Vallensbæk Municipality, Albertslund Municipality, Glostrup Municipality, Rødovre Municipality, Herlev Municipality, Allerød Municipality, Hørsholm Municipality Gribskov Municipality og last, but not least, Halsnæs Municipality! Every delivery to these municipalities happened in ONE day, and now Action Kids was in 50 municipalities in Denmark, and the year had barely started!

In February 2022 Fanø Municipality also received ACTIONboxes, and in April Billund Municipality joined the list! Fantastic!

There was still momentum at Action Kids in 2023! Due to a donation from Sparekassen Danmark, Thomas attended a meeting at Fredericia Sports Center with all 30 institution leaders, and with a big smile delivered ACTION boxes to ALL the municipality's kindergartens!

A few days later in 2023, he went to Viborg Municipality and distributed Action Kids to every single kindergarten in the entire municipality! This was thanks to NORLYS Growth Fund, which donated. So that's 45 kindergartens that have been enriched with Action Kids at once!

Before the month was over, every kindergarten in Frederikssund Municipality also received their ACTION boxes. That's 38 boxes! It was a shame that things went well in 2023 too, so it was good that Thomas had gained some experience from the great success in 2022.

At the beginning of 2024, Esbjerg Municipality received 79 ACTION boxes, thanks to a large donation from Claus Sørensen's Foundation, and then we had a presentation of a group of children who completed the Action Kids universe on Space! We smiled the whole way through, it was such a fantastic feeling to experience happy children moving together. 

Later, Odense Municipality also had the pleasure of having Action Kids in all of their kindergartens, thanks to the Arbejdernes Landsbank Fonden donating a total of 142  (YES! 142!) ACTION boxes to every one! Then we reached 57 municipalities! That is crazy!

It is also thanks to the fact that in 2024 Action Kids came out with its fourth universe; "Action Kids in the Circus"! Now there are four different, hilarious and activating Action Kids universes!

The list of municipalities did not end there, because later in the year Action Kids also reached 58, 59, 50, 61, 62, 63 and 64 municipalities!!! Roskilde Municipality came in at number 64, so now we only need to enrich less than a third of Denmark's municipalities with Action Kids before we can safely say that Action Kids has spread to all of Denmark!

We have cross the Danish borders and even put Action Kids in 55 kindergartens in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, so that means that:

Action Kids is now in

1889 kindergartens!

The future of Action Kids

When you hear about the whole story behind Action Kids, you probably wonder why such a fun movement concept isn't tried in other countries – and it will be! For Action Kids, the year 2025 is European, and that's why Thomas has gone beyond Denmark's borders to spread the joy behind Action Kids.

Right now Action Kids can be found in Danish, German and Ukrainian, but there is even more to come! There is also much happening behind the scenes on Action Kids' international EU-website, so keep an eye on it, when www.actionkids.eu will be launched in the first Quarter of 2025!!!

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