Mountain Karate Academy will hold its 20th Anniversary celebration event from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, May 21 at the Lehighton Bandshell and surrounding park.

There will be demonstrations by Mountain Karate Academy, Tumble with Denise, and Dance with Kim, plus there will be a children's bicycle safety presentation by the Lehighton Police Department and an on site animal adoption, games of chance, food, music by Bill Murray and the Crossover Band, and local crafters and vendors.Proceeds benefit local kids through Kids4Kids United scholarships.Kids4KidsUnited is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that was created to serve children and adolescents in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding areas who have a desire to train in the discipline of the martial arts but lack the means to do so. Kids4KidsUnited has donated scholarships to over 35 students. Kids4KidsUnited has also benefited children across the country and around the world with generous annual monetary donations to charities including St. Jude's Children's Hospital and orphans in Sri Lanka who were victims of the 2005 Tsunami.Kids4KidsUnited was created in 2004 in memory of the 1995 death of Lehigh Valley karate student Eddie Yurickones, Jr. It was just months after Eddie won his battle with a form of cancer called Hodgkin's disease that Eddie was shot and killed by a teenage neighbor. The mission of Kids4KidsUnited is to assist at-risk children and adolescents so that they may learn to make better choices in their lives and their futures so that tragedies like this one might be averted.In the last 6 years, Kids4KidsUnited has donated over 35 scholarships to local martial arts students in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding areas, most recently adding Mountain Karate Academy of Lehighton to its list of carefully selected participating schools.Mountain Karate Academy and its owners Paul Maglionico and Sharyl Maglionico have embraced the Kids4Kids mission and program. This 20th Celebration Event on Friday May 21 will be their first fundraiser to benefit Kids4KidsUnited. Currently, Mountain Karate Academy has one Kids4KidsUnited scholarship recipient attending its school, with several other applications being reviewed by the Kids4Kids board.By helping local kids and teens through Kids4Kids United, Mountain Karate Academy is making a real difference in its community and your community.It takes a little less than $1,000 for Kids4KidsUnited to fund 1 year of training for a local martial arts child or adolescent.All donations to Kids4KidsUnited are tax-deductible. Contact Kids4Kids United at (610) 366-4121 or

Info@kids4kidsunited.org. The address is Kids4Kids United, P.O. Box 304, Fogelsville, PA 18051. See the website at

www.kids4kidsunited.org. Director of development is Steve Weisberg at

sweisberg@crestcarpet.com.