Turlock Parks and Recreation wrapped up a successful year of summer programming earlier this month. They saw high participation numbers across the board, and they received grant funding to offer summer programming to ACES after school program participants.
“Our numbers were high from youth to adults. Summer went very well,” said Erik Schulze, recreation senior supervisor.
Turlock Recreation ran a special summer clinic for students who participated in the ACES after-school program during the school year. The program was funded by a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant and was run through a partnership with the Turlock Police Department. Students paid $75 a month for a full day program that ran from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Columbia Park. The program included an educational component similar to what is offered at the regular after school ACES program.
“A lot of these students who come to the program after school needed some place to go during the day over summer vacation. It helped to provide them with a safe place to go during the day,” Schulze said.
In addition to the ACES summer program, Turlock Parks and Recreation also offered summer camps at Turlock High School and Pitman High School. Both programs were full day fee-based programs. Between the two camps, 248 total students were served. Children ranged in age from kindergarten through sixth grade.
“I think it was a big plus that we had pools open and available for all three programs,” Schulze said.
Karen Packwood, aquatics supervisor for the recreation department, said numbers were also good for swim lessons and summer swim programs, with 11,976 people participating in recreation swim in all of Turlock’s public pools. The city pools were kept busy with 1,291 people participating in swim lessons, and the program raised $54,000 in revenue.
“That money goes towards paying staff, buying supplies, maintaining the pools and basically anything included in running the swim programs,” Packwood said.
Aquatics staff did random skill checks of lifeguards, who are all certified before they begin their lifeguarding duties. There were no accidents during recreational swim or swim lessons this year.
The Turlock Fall recreation guide is available under the recreation page at www.turlock.ca.us. Sign-ups are still open for many second sessions of recreation programs.
To contact Andrea Goodwin, e-mail agoodwin@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2003.
