The air was filled with excited conversation and laughter last Friday afternoon at the Armourdale Recreation Center as over 75 elementary school-age children showed their stuff by singing, dancing and acting their way through a very cool talent show to wrap up Armourdale Renewal Association's summer recreation program.
I had the wonderful opportunity to join parents, families and friends to witness the program and I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.
Parents, families and friends eagerly await the start of the show.
Historically, the Unified Government's Parks and Recreation Department used to fund summer recreation programs at all of the recreation centers across the city. Unfortunately, budget cuts over the years forced the UG to gradually discontinue those programs.
The folks at Armourdale Renewal Association (ARA) decided that they valued the program enough to find private funding to keep it going. Patty Dysart and Kim Hausback are the driving forces behind ARA and they have done a great job of rallying the community to support the kids.
Individuals and businesses throughout the Armourdale community give generously to make sure that the kids have a quality summer program. The Unified Government Parks and Recreation Department partners with ARA and opens the Armourdale Recreation Center, then ARA does the rest.
Although you can't really see it (poor camera work on my part),
one of the talent show acts made great use of Silly String!
The fearless leader of the summer program was Josh (Coach) Boswell. Mr. Boswell is the PE teacher at John Fiske Elementary School in Armourdale and he directed the daily activities of the summer program. It was clear throughout the afternoon that the kids think the world of Coach and really appreciate all of his hard work on their behalf.
Mr. Boswell was assisted by two college students who are working toward degrees in childcare science and 12 high school-age "team leaders" who received a stipend through the BPU summer youth program. It was very cool to see these young men and women take true leadership roles in helping direct program activities.
Coach and his crew had activities planned every day. In addition to general daily "stuff" (and swimming on Fridays), the kids all participated in Armourdale's own version of the Summer Olympics.
All of the kids were divided into teams and each team took on the name and flag of a country that's participating in the Summer Olympics. Then, the teams battled one another in all sorts of athletic and artistic competitions throughout the summer. In between acts at the talent show, Coach handed out medals to all of the individual and team winners of the Armourdale Summer Olympics.
As this summer's program came to an end, Kim was already looking forward to next year. She said that one of the new projects for next summer will be the creation of a community garden. A neighbor near the recreation center has agreed to let the summer program use a plot of land and the kids will plant, tend and harvest the garden.
Congratulations to everyone who had a hand in making this year's Armourdale summer recreation program a success! You give all of us a powerful example of how a community can pull together and do great things.
Coach Boswell (back row, second from left) and his teen team leaders
celebrate another successful summer.
