Community center activity on the rise

After having the community center closed for a year for renovations, it has taken a while for people to get back to using it.

"Participation has increased," Dana Redburn, parks and recreation director, said.

"Lots of kids are coming in to play basketball," she said.

And the participation in other youth activities has also increased. When they held a youth dance class last fall they could only fill one session. In January they had to add a second class to accommodate the increased interest.

The staff is also getting more involved with the kids, she said.

"They are having more interaction with the kids -- playing a video game or shooting hoops," she said.

Right now, besides signing up kids and forming teams for blastball, tee-ball, baseball and softball, the community center is between activities, but there is a lot of work going on planning events for the summer.

A complaint in the past has been the lack of activities for middle school age youth. This year the community center is working with a new group formed at the Nevada Middle School called SHOUT to remedy this.

They are trying to develop a plan for what we can do for middle school students, Redburn said.

Last Saturday they held their first event, a "Slimefest" at Radio Springs Park that attracted about 150 middle school age students to get slimed, have a tug-of-war over a pool filled with slime, eat, visit or play in the mud that was by-product of days activities.

The members of SHOUT are also planning to have some activity at the community center each Thursday from 2 - 4 p.m.

It could be something like basketball or something non-traditional like a scavenger hunt or black light volleyball, she said.

The activities sponsored by SHOUT come from ideas from the students, not adults. A formula similar to the one followed by the LOL group at the high school.

Redburn said the community center is planning to hold a School's Out Luaua for students in grades 2-6 from 11:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., on May 18 for students after classes are dismissed for the summer to give parents an option from a sitter. She said that since this year the school will not be serving lunch, they will provide a meal for participants as well as a snack. Because of the meal and the snack she said there will be $10 charge for this event.

Another activity Redburn said they are considering is to form a Lego™ League, which would have up to 10 teams with 10 members each and an adult coach, who would build a robot out of Legos™ kits. Then in mid- to late- July the community center would hold a tournament for the teams. The robots would have to negotiate a predetermined obstacle course that the teams would know before they build and program their robot.

The top three teams from the local tournament would then go to a regional tournament. Additional tournaments are held at the state, national and international level. With the culmination being held next April in the Edward D. Jones Dome in St. Louis.

She said they are also considering expanding the Super Heroes of Kindness to include other students since St. Mary's preschool does not meet during the summer.

Other possible activities include a Wii bowling tournament, a summer reading program with the library and in conjunction with On My Own, a wheelchair basketball league.

"By fall it's going to be busy around here," Redburn said.