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Prospects look dim for summer kids program

By Meg Olson

With nobody to run it, the parks department summer program is likely to be shelved this year.

“It’s not looking good right now and I’ve talked to almost everyone I know,” said parks board member Shelley Damewood at the board’s May 2 meeting. “There’s no one interested in staffing it. Unless something miraculous occurs before July, I don’t see we have much choice. The expectations are so high after Kelli’s program.”

Kelli Madsen, who has run the program for the past two years, garnering rave reviews and expanding activities to include weekly field trips, has relocated temporarily to Las Vegas. “She’s coming back but not in time,” said board member Irene Waters. Waters explained the five-week, three-day-a-week program employed six part-time staff members. “Of the six we had last year, now we’re down to one,” she said. She added Madsen had started planning for last year’s activities in February. “It’s quite a responsibility, planning everything and making it work with 30 to 50 kids,” she said. “If we do it, let’s do it right, not like a babysitting program.”

Waters suggested that if the summer program didn’t come together this year the funds could be used to add playground equipment at the community center. The summer program costs the parks department $7,500 to run. Funding for weekly field trip buses and admissions came from a federal grant administered by the Blaine school district family service center.

Damewood suggested that if the summer program didn’t come together they could ask the Whatcom County parks department to bring some of their one-day events, such as kayaking trips for teens, to Point Roberts. She said she would follow up the possibility with the county’s Teen Adventure Program coordinators. The program this year already has a growing list of skatepark trips, overnight kayak trips, mountain bike rides planned for youths 11 to 18-years-old, but all of them start off from Bellingham meeting places.

Waters said the parks would try and make as many resources available as possible. ‘If we can’t have a program, we could look at putting up the volleyball nets for the summer,” she said. “Maybe we could get something organized for the kids at Baker Field. We need to try and get something going for the kids.”

While one parks program appears to be dwindling, another is being born. Board member Fred DeHaan has been working to resuscitate family baseball nights at Baker Field for the summer, and the first pitch is due to be thrown the first Friday in June, weather permitting. Games are from 6:30-7:30 p.m. “It’s slow pitch softball and everybody plays,” DeHaan said.

Waters said summer evening softball had been a Point Roberts tradition until the 1970s. “It used to be Monday nights. That’s why we put in the restrooms and the bleachers,” she said. “Unfortunately, it turned into family fight nights.” A change since the 1970s are posted signs announcing there is no alcohol allowed in the park.

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