Providence Recreational Advisory Board-Monday June 10, 2024-6:00 PM

Good evening, everyone. Today is 06/10/2024. This is the, June meeting of the Recreation Advisory Board. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Chairman Simon.

Present.

Vice Chair Sanchez. Present. Councilwoman Vargas. Present. Jenna Lafayette.

Present. Kenneth Phillips is absent. We have four present and one absent. We have quorum. Excellent.

Thank you.

For those of you listening at home,

this is, Councilwoman Vargas was kind enough to get us all pizza tonight. So we're all kind of talking with our mouth full. But Councilwoman, thank you. And we're all It's fine. For your leadership on so many issues.

And we are in your award tonight too.

Oh, yeah. What a country.

We are very happy to be here, and we spend a lot of time at this recreation center. Okay. So thank you for all that you do. We

will have more. Thank you.

Our agenda tonight is we're gonna have our... We we just did a a brief tour of the facility here. We have a presentation from Yeleni, who is the director here, and her team. We're gonna do a debrief on the soccer league with director Grace. We're gonna have discussion updates on fall and winter recreation offerings, very quick discussion on summer meeting schedule, and then we also will be talking about some exciting, opportunities for fundraising coming up as well.

So without further ado, Yelani, director, thank you very much for for having us here today and hosting us. We know that this is a disruption to your regular schedule, but obviously an important one. So thank you, first of all, for you and Carl and your team for all that you guys do for the youth of this neighborhood and the city. But one of our, you know, goals and missions as a board is to be here to support you guys as much as we possibly can, hear from you about the different types of things that's going on in the center here. The tour was very informative.

I think it gave us all some things that we might wanna go back and talk about. But, without further ado, please take it away. I know you have a presentation for us. And, madam clerk, do we need to enter the Yes. I'll entertain a motion to enter the, the presentation from the Igliozi Recreation Center into the record.

So Second. All in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Okay.

So that's entered in. Director, please go ahead.

So the picture that you see here was from the swim competition of the summer twenty twenty three, and we did come in third place. Hopefully, you know, we can come in second, maybe even first, but we'll see.

Mhmm. Is that just the competition of all of the different with pools?

Not every single rep, but the ones that have a pool.

Very cool.

So these are Like, a little note

for the people listening at home too. This is the first meeting that we've had for our our roadshow that actually has a now show up pool at the facility too. So we're learning a lot about pools in this presentation. Mhmm. Oh, West ended up, but it was it was in the winter.

It was it was in the winter. We never canceled it before. Alright. Good point, though, director.

So this is everything that we do at the facility, the spaces that we use to utilize for our after school programs for the kids in the neighborhood, our gymnasium, community room, our pool, and then sometimes we do step outside as well. We have girls club on Monday. We have creative art club. That's on Tuesday. We have dance club on Wednesday, and we have games and puzzles on Thursday.

And then we try to do movie nights on Friday depending on what we can all agree on at the moment. So... And then we also do pool... Table pool now. That is still new.

We got that two weeks ago. From the assistant director, Howard, he was gracious enough to sell this his own personal, like, table pool so we can realize that here for the kids and offer something different. We do provide homework help, but I do have to admit pass a certain grade. Math is not my best subject, so I try to stay away from math. And then we also have, basketball skills and drills for, kids that are beginning or would like to learn the basics.

They can come here and learn about that.

And are all these programs year round, or are they at certain times?

Yes. They're all year round. Of course, when we do have our basketball season, they kind of Yeah. Yeah. So this is our attendance.

Of course, it is low during the winter and, of course, basketball season. We host numerous basketball leagues such as the province Linslow League, our own province recreation league. So numbers are low, but right now, we're trying to rectify that, especially for next year. We're gonna be meeting with schools to provide transportation as well for the younger kids for that. This is our athletic lead.

I'll let Carl speak on that because he runs everything when it comes to sports and stuff for the recreation center. As

of right now, we have... Like Joanna said, we have the Beginners Basketball League for a new set of time. We have basketball. We have the high school basketball clinic that Joanna and myself like to run right after summer. Usually starts probably towards the end of September.

We are going to open it up to probably every kid in the city of Providence, so they have somewhere to go, just to get them prepared for our basketball season. We have a kickball, that we try to play indoors, soccer, football, and pool. And then the girls like to have the jump rope and hula hoop. They like to make it like a competition out of it here and then. So that's basically what we have going on here when it comes down to any sports.

Oh my god.

You love that picture, Anna? Really love it.

So we have numerous events up there as you know. That picture was from our Easter event with councilwoman Anna Vargas, which I think was an amazing hit. We had a lot of things I'd say, such as face painting, like an obstacle course jumpy house. We did a Easter egg hunt in the park, and we had local vendors as well and St. Pibb's.

But we did also have for a special event. We had a Halloween party in October. We had a Thanksgiving event as well. We were feeding, you know, displaced families home cooked meals. And then we also had a Christmas event, and her most recent event was a mother day event.

So

Tell me a little more about the Thanksgiving event.

Thanksgiving event? Yeah. So councilwoman Anna Vargas received some donations, and myself and my team included, we, provided bags of hygiene products, like soap, some warm pants and things like that for anyone who would need it.

Yeah. You said you were providing meals too?

Yes. We provided home cooked meals. Yes. Courtesy of mother. She cooks everything, and it was delicious.

So, yeah, it was really a team effort.

On Thanksgiving Day or before?

It was before. Yeah. I believe, like, a few days before, but Thanksgiving week.

You wanna make sure you remind us of that for this year. I'll come and help. I mean, I'll play that Great. That's awesome. Yeah.

And then we did have a girls club event that was in 2023, I believe, December where I hosted the girls club from different recreation centers. We kinda just try to empower the young youth of women in our community, And I also think that that was a hit. So, yeah, we had a guest speaker as well in that event.

Oh, Christmas tree. I love it.

Yeah. That was one of my favorites because we did have a Christmas tree lighting with councilwoman Anna Vargas. And then once everyone was done with that, we had everyone come inside for our our Christmas event, and we had Santa and the Grinch here for the for the kids.