There’s still room in the roundup for you and your family at this weekend’s “Saddle Up” 2019, the annual fundraiser for MTSU’s Ann Campbell Early Learning Center, on Saturday, April 20, at the Tennessee Livestock Center.

The fun is set for 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. April 20, and tickets are $10 per person or a $50 maximum per family. Admission includes a light breakfast supplied by local businesses.

Click on the graphic for ticket information for “Saddle Up” 2019.

Now in its 12th year, “Saddle Up” will feature “’Egg’sploration,” animals from the Discovery Center at Murfree Center, face painting, visits from “Moozie the Cow” of the Children’s Kindness Network and “Eddie the Eagle” from the MTSU Police Department, bowling, a corn sensory bin, the Department of Engineering Technology Experimental Vehicles Program’s award-winning “moon buggy” and Baja vehicle, and sensory activities among its 25-plus opportunities for fun, as well as the traditional silent auction.

The Livestock Center is located at 1720 Greenland Drive, and parking will be free and plentiful for guests. A campus map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTParkingMap.

Advance tickets are available at www.mtalumni.com/saddleup and at the ACE Learning Center’s offices at 206 N. Baird Lane. Tickets will be available at the door, too, but organizers are urging families to buy online so they can mosey past any lines at the entrance and get right to the fun.

This year’s silent auction will feature tickets and/or passes to attractions including Walt Disney World, Holiday World, Dollywood, Six Flags Over Georgia, the Frist Art Museum, the Murfreesboro Center for the Arts, the Cannon County Playhouse, the Nashville Symphony and Nashville Zoo, and the Adventure Science Center; certificates for local businesses including Chicken Salad Chick, Homegrown Marketplace, Premiere 6 Theatre and Tire World; MTSU Athletics tickets and more.

The complete list of auction contributors is available here. Final bidding closes at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, and you don’t have to be present to win.

Saddle Up helps support ACE Learning Center projects alongside funds from tuition, MTSU, the United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties, the Charity Circle of Murfreesboro and private donations.

Thanks to supporters attending Saddle Up each year, the center most recently was able to expand its unique wheelchair-accessible natural playground along with continuing to provide daily services for local children.

The nonprofit ACE Learning Center is an inclusive facility for children 12 months to 6 years old with and without developmental delays, allowing them to play and learn with and from each other. Teachers at the center plan activities that help each child develop good communication, social, cognitive and motor skills.

The center is named for the late Ann Campbell, a faculty member in MTSU’s Department of Elementary and Special Education, who created Project Help, one of Tennessee’s first inclusive early childhood programs, in 1983. The center, now occupying part of MTSU’s Fairview Building as well as its main facility on North Baird Lane, was renamed for her in 2014.

More than 200 MTSU students work and volunteer with children and support teachers in the center’s four classrooms throughout the academic year.

To learn more about Saddle Up, donate silent-auction items or become a sponsor for the event, contact director Christy Davis at christy.davis@mtsu.edu or visit www.mtsu.edu/acelearningcenter/saddleup.php.

For more information about the Ann Campbell Early Learning Center and its work, visit www.mtsu.edu/acelearningcenter or call 615-898-2458.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)

These little cowhands are taking a break on their unique wheelchair-accessible natural playground at MTSU’s Ann Campbell Early Learning Center before they join the fun Saturday, April 20, at the Tennessee Livestock Center at the annual “Saddle Up” party and fundraiser. The 8:30-11:30 a.m. schedule will feature animals from the Discovery Center at Murfree Center, face painting, bowling, a corn sensory bin, the Department of Engineering Technology Experimental Vehicles Program’s award-winning “moon buggy” and Baja vehicle, and sensory activities among its 25-plus opportunities for fun as well as the traditional silent auction. “Saddle Up” tickets are $10 per person or a $50 maximum per family, and admission includes a light breakfast supplied by local businesses. For more information, visit www.mtsu.edu/acelearningcenter or www.mtalumni.com/saddleup, or call 615-898-2458. (MTSU photo by Jacob Smith/Ann Campbell Early Learning Center)

Local entertainer, farmer and dad “Cowboy Dan,” left, helps children at MTSU’s Ann Campbell Early Learning Center check on their vegetables in the raised garden beds at the center’s wheelchair-accessible natural playground in this summer 2018 file photo. The playground at the center’s North Baird Lane headquarters has been the beneficiary of funds raised at the annual “Saddle Up” party and fundraiser, set this year for Saturday, April 20, in the Tennessee Livestock Center. For more information, visit www.mtsu.edu/acelearningcenter or www.mtalumni.com/saddleup, or call 615-898-2458. (MTSU photo by Jacob Smith/Ann Campbell Early Learning Center)