Providence Recreational Advisory Board-Monday, March 10, 2025-6:00 PM
Call to Order and Roll Call
Chairman Simon called the meeting of the Providence Recreational Advisory Board to order at the John Rollins Recreation Center. The roll was called, and a quorum was established with four members present.
John Rollins Recreation Center Presentation
Center Director Nasha presented an overview of the center's programs, including after-school meal programs, girls' mentorship, basketball tournaments, and the community garden initiative. The board discussed facility needs such as roof leaks, pest control, tech access, and upcoming spring sports.
Review of Fiscal Year 2025 Budget
Recreation Director Steven Grace reviewed the status of the FY25 operating budget and temporary seasonal salary accounts. The board discussed the impact of citywide spending freezes and the expiration of ARPA funding on staffing and operations.
Discussion of Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Priorities
The board discussed strategic budget priorities for FY26, including operating under a level-funded budget, pursuing external sponsorships, and generating revenue through fundraising and merchandise. Members also discussed incorporating daytime senior programming and monitoring capital facility improvements.
Public Comment and Adjournment
The board observed that no members of the public were present for comment. A motion to adjourn was made, seconded, and passed unanimously.
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Good. How are you? Good.
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Good. Afternoon, everybody. Today is Monday, 03/10/2025. This is is the meeting of the Providence Recreational Advisory Board meeting. Madam clerk, could you call call the roll?
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Chairman Simon?
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Present.
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Vice chair Sanchez?
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Present.
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Councilwoman Vargas? Present. Jenna Lafayette? Present. Kenneth Phillips is absent.
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We have four present and one absent. We have a quorum. Great. Thank you.
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We are here at the John Rollins Rollins Recreation Center. And, actually, I always get confused. John Rollins Recreation Center, South Providence Recreation Center. There's, like, two names on the building. I know.
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But yeah.
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So when do you use
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where should what name went?
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So we always use John Rollins because it was renamed in 2015.
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Got it. Alright. So here we have John Rollins Recreation Center. And we are joined by Nacha who is the, the director here. So thanks for joining us today.
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And as always, we are, joined by Stephen Grace who is the director of recreation. So, for today, we have not as packed an agenda as we normally have. I wanted to leave some time to start talking about, the budget. You know, as we know, one of our responsibilities as a board is to advise on the budget and the and the finances of the rec department. So, after we have a presentation from Nasha around, all the programming and some of the the data and the numbers around the Rounds Recreation Center, we're gonna dive into starting to talk about the the the current year budget and then some of the general priorities around, what we wanna be looking at for fiscal year twenty six.
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And so we'll dive into all that after. But right now, we are grateful that Nacha is here. And let me just start off by saying, you know, we have traveled around to all the rec centers when we host these meetings, and we wanna start by just saying thank you for all the work that you do. We know it's a lot of work and truly impact the lives of thousands of kids every year who come through these doors, we are grateful for all you do for the city and for the department and the youth. I have been fortunate enough to come here for my son's basketball games and to play here a bunch, and and you have a great center, Jen.
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Do a great job. So thank you for all that you do and for all you do for the kids. And I will turn it over to you and Steven to read the presentation about John Rollins. This
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is gonna be, Nasha, obviously. She's been a great director. And in my short time here, has been very vocal with me, with, you know, things that are gonna make this center great. So she's passionate. She wants to make sure that these kids have everything that they deserve.
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And so it's been reflected in some of the things that she's been able to accomplish and even, like I said, just in the short two years with my perspective and how, like, we can grow together. So it's been really cool to work with her, so I'll hand it over to her to kinda start us off here. But our agenda today, Rollins, and then, like the chair said, budget and then public comment. And so I'll hand it over to Nasha.
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Okay. So as you can see, this is the community room. So here in this room, we typically gather. We'll have either events. We feed the kids because we have a meals program.
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So when the kids come directly after school, we give them dinner even though it's, like, considered a snack. And then around 05:00, 05:30, they get another meal. So we feed them twice. And in this room as well, they're able to do their homework. And once the gym is able to once we have access to the gym, because the school utilizes our gym for arrival and dismissal, we kinda separate the kids.
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So some kids may wanna do some board games, some more intimate play in the game room, and then some kids just wanna run around, play basketball, within the gym. So, typically, pretty much from September to June, we have a after school program that I've been able to really tap into my relationship with Youngwoods Elementary School. Because prior to me becoming the assistant director now, I'm the director under mister Cedric, their relationship was kind of wonky, and I would say, like, we should be getting more kids. So I think I've done a pretty good job with tapping into building a relationship with the principals, along with the the staff, whether it's the gym teachers, the janitors, I think you've been able to really build to the point where I can go to the school and have presentations with the kids. They know me.
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I know them on a first name basis, so it's not a stranger coming into their space. They know miss Nasha. Hey. How are doing? So I think our at school program has grown tremendously when within the last, like, four or five years.
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And as some you can hear, we have basketball. We have one of the biggest gyms, so it attracts not only the youth, but adults within the community. So pretty much every day, we have basketball here. And the bulk of our rentals, adult rentals, our basketball for adults, whether they're 40, 21, 18, but also we're a hub for tournaments, whether it's community members, charter schools, regular schools, whether they're middle school or high school. Before COVID, people were one of the rec centers that actually hosted the middle school games.
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But due to the late bell schedule, we can't accommodate PPSD with that. But whenever we can, we always open our doors, whether it's the high schools or, the Providence charter schools, to host basketball games here. Mentorship programs, we've done really good too. Not to brag, but our girls club, I feel like in terms of female engagement since I've been here has gone up, but, also, we have a tremendous amount of girls in our girls program that we've had a huge push all of the recreation department, to increase female engagement because for a long time, rec centers was male dominated. It's only for boys to go.
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There's not enough programming for the girls, so we do a good job. I hired more female staff, from the ages that we're trying to target. So younger staff, in between staff, older staff so that there's a good mix so that we know what's going on and that we're current with a lot of the language or current issues. So one of the major issues that I encounter with our girls program is self esteem, a lot of social media, and how they view themselves outwardly. So we do a lot of work with, self esteem and making sure that they they view themselves as beautiful here and that they could do whatever they want and just as much as the boys.
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But we also have, we implemented it a year a year ago, our boys' mentorship program, which is literally mirrors our girls' programming so that they feel special too because they're like, miss Nash, or why do the girls get to have this one on one time, and why do you guys get, like, this quiet space? So we've been working on that and building that program up as well and taking them out into the community and exposing them to things that's not just basketball, like, conversations around hygiene, what it is, to tap into some of their issues, but creating a safe space. So I kinda remove myself, but I give my staff enough tools so that they can take that on so that they're building those concrete relationships with the boys. So if something's going on at home or if they don't really have a male presence in the home, they know that they can come to my staff. They can text my staff or whenever the next boys club or even just linking up here and having that one on one time, they have the capacity to do that.
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And along with the mentorship program, we also have had partnerships outside in the community with the Wheeler School, so that was a good partnership that we had. So we will take some of our middle school kids and transport them over to the Wheeler School to get additional academic support. Art club. That's a really big club that we have because, again, we try to have, inclusive space where it's not just about basketball, baseball, anything sports because the kids have changed. They wanna do arts.
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They wanna do music. They wanna dance. So we try to create little pockets of different programming where they're able to shine because, again, like I said, not everybody wants to play in the gym or wants to play sports. Our garden club, that's a club that's near and dear to my heart because I feel like kids have to be self sufficient. We are in the middle of a pool desert here on the South Side.
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Mhmm. We have limited resources. The closest is the American basket that was formerly known as Compare Foods on Broad Street. So if you don't have a car, you have to walk there, and the prices are pretty high along with the corner stores. Those are really expensive.
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Our closest grocery is Cranston, which is the price. Right? And then Stop and Shop, which is also in Cranston. That's in proximity. So if they learn how to grow their own food, that can help them out.
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You don't have to have you don't have to own your own home to grow your own food. You can do a makeshift within your house. So you try to teach them to grow food, and they're able to eat it too.
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And, Nasha, what what what are some of the things that you've done to address food insecurity? Just on your own at your center?
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So addressing food insecurity. So we just recently, so I linked up me and my staff, we came together, we cooked our own food to give back, just passing out hot food on Broad Street, on the West End, specifically Princeton Street, but also trying to create more partnerships within the community with the Rhode Island Group Inc. So, my hope is that we can have a space that can address 18 plus. So whether it's once a month or every other week, given the state of inflation and everything that's going on where families can come and pick up food whenever they want. And we've also connected with Archie Johnson from the Rosa Parks.
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I'm gonna butcher it. Can't remember the name of the or the organization, but he's on Prairie Avenue. But they have a plot of farming where we've been trying to get our kids to be able to grow food. Because we have them over here on Broadstreet, their plots of land where Mhmm. The community grows their own food.
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Yeah. So he has it. So we're gonna utilize that as well for our kids. And what else? For food insecurity.
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And how many kids generally participate in those in the program?
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For for the community garden or the garden club, I would say between Yeah. 12 to 18 given I feel like we have more participation when it gets warmer
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Yeah.
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Because they can see us outside. Because sometimes we'll start the programming in here and then we move outside. So we're actually working on getting, more garden beds, well raised garden beds so that we can plant more.
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And then one other program I'd like you to talk about because I know you're being humble.
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We just wanna just wanna take one step back on that, though, too, because I actually think it's an interesting area where you guys can partner with schools and some of the carpentry programs and whatnot. Do you partner with, like, PCTA or, like, building futures or anything like that?
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So I do have a good relationship with building futures. So mister Robert Nyhoun, his son used to play for us, so we definitely have a relationship. I also work at the Met High School. So I tap into my students like, hey. I have this project idea, and sometimes we'll do it through PVD design or Dallas City design Yeah.
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Where we have the partnerships because we are in an open space where we can collaborate.
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But the raised beds, particularly Yes. Probably, like, an easy project going to do if you guys need more of it. Absolutely. Well, on that particular program, if you if you're thinking about doing, like, a once a month thing over here, let's connect offline because I'd like to be helpful with that too.
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Absolutely. Because here for that for sure. It's definitely a passion of mine, regarding food and security because we do a good job recreation citywide where we have the meals program. So we have 11 recreation centers so the kids get to eat, but I'm more of a macro and micro type of person where we're only addressing the kids who come directly here. But what about if the mom and dad is working two or three jobs?
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They gotta eat too, but our program is only for 18 and under. So they should be able to get food. So that's why I try to connect with the Rhode Island Food Bank to see what we can do to address that specifically. But we're saying food pantry there? Is there
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a food pantry that's local here?
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So that's what we're trying to create with the Rhode Island Food Bank by connecting with them because you don't have a food bank on the Lower South Providence area, which we're in right now. Yep. So that's why they currently aren't taking any new applications. But because we're in the middle of a food desert and there's no food pantries, that's why they're giving us the opportunity. So me and director Steven Grace will be meeting with miss Folk again to try to establish what we can do.
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And I gotta say she's done an excellent job. Think I in our last meeting, we talked about how directors are gonna have goals and we're looking into expanding on what they could do. And so this was Nasha's self identified goal. And she did the groundwork, identified the point of contact, establishing a meeting that we can go to, to be able to give support to this. So, any help that, like, you guys can give to help her with this is gonna be great because