Devon Nelson and Austin Lockhart created a Right Of Passage Experience (ROPES) as an extracurricular 8th grade project to support the Youth Center.Both students attend the Youth Center and enjoy their experiences at the SCYC. For their ROPES project, they decided to raise money to donate to the Youth Center.They created a ”bat-a-thon”, seeking donors/pledges from people as they continuously hit baseballs on Laureola field.They exceeded their initial goal and raised $500 to donate to the SCYC. Giving back to one’s community is an important asset to learn as a young person.When speaking to the boys, we asked “Why give to the Youth Center?”They replied that they wanted to give back to a place that means so much to them. Thanks guys!
The Kiwanis Club of San Carlos designated April 5th as a volunteer work day at the Kiwanis Building in Burton Park. Our sincere thanks to Phil Abrams, Sandy Abrahamson, Bill & Rosalie Becker, Rosie Jimenez, Herb Prodger, Dulcie Morrison, and the Central Builder’s Club group for their clean-up efforts in and around the building.A clean, well-maintained facility keeps our participants happy and comfortable.
Personal & Family Development partnered with the San Carlos Educational Foundation for the 3rd year to promote San Carlos Night at AT&T Park, Giants vs Reds, on Friday, April 25th. Kiwanis Building staff sold over 600 tickets to the game, assisting each party to find their ‘perfect seats’.As an added bonus, SamTrans provided discounted CalTrain tickets to sell along with the game tickets. Proceeds from the event benefit SCEF and Parks & Recreation programs.
The Adult Community Center hosted 2 community events this past month. The Jazz Scene Cabaret, featuring songwriter/guitarist Bruce Barley, attracted 40 patrons who enjoyed light appetizers, wine and music. 80 people enjoyed a delicious Beef Burgundy menu and great conversation at our April Showers Luncheon.
The Parks and Recreation Department is thrilled to host a benefit concert featuring Choo Choo Soul with Genevieve (as featured on Playhouse Disney) in support of the Burton Park Playground Project.The concert will be held on Saturday, May 17th at 12:30pm on the Hometown Days Main Stage.Playground Committee members and staff will be available at the concert to answer questions about the playground project and collect donations. Genevieve is a San Carlos native and very excited to be coming home for this event.
Parks Professional, Arturo Burgueno, has crafted three brand new, hand painted, solid wood park identification signs. The signs are for Chilton Park, Hillcrest Circle Park and Arguello Park.
The Friends of the San Carlos Adult Community Center held their annual Community Crabfeed on Sunday, March 30th. We had a full house, serving 170 people and 495 pounds of crab! The community came together to mix and mingle, eat crab and raise money to support our Center. This is the Friends’ major fundraising event of the year. Proceeds are used to fund programs, services, and equipment to enhance available resources.
Promote Health and Wellness
Arundel Elementary School recently conducted a Health Fair on campus and asked the Youth Center for information regarding children’s health programming.Youth Center staff assisted with the Health Fair by offering our Health and Wellness materials, bookmarks, refrigerator magnets with healthy snacking ideas, pocket guides for healthy fast foods and exercising guides.Partnering with our schools to ensure the health of our children is a primary goal of the Youth Development staff.
Personal & Family Development is partnering with REI (Recreation Equipment Inc.) to provide outdoor adventure opportunities for San Carlos during the spring and summer sessions. Hiking Successfully with Kids, Overnight Backpacking, Outdoor Photo Composition, and Women’s Road Cycling classes, led by REI’s Outdoor School professional instructors, will help keep our community fit and healthy.
Community Health Talks, planned by Personal & Family Development, have returned to the health and wellness program at the Adult Community Center.Free lectures on Cardiovascular Disease, Understanding How to Use an AED, and Early Detection for Lung Cancer are presented by medical professionals from Sequoia and Stanford Hospitals.Both morning and evening sessions are scheduled for the convenience of all. The April 9th Cardiovascular Disease presentation by Dr. Andrew Lee attracted 17 participants; survey results gave the lecture high marks as well as ideas for future topics. The May AED talk/training is especially relevant with the recent addition of AED units in the public areas at all City recreation facilities.
As of February 2008, the San Carlos Youth Center (SCYC) has started an inspirational and informational program in the gymnasium called the Athlete of the Month (AOM). The AOM features professional athletes of various sports and is randomly selected by the staff member(s) or suggested by the youth. These professional athletes are people who have finished high school, continued to college, participated in extra-curricular activities, and have found ways to give back to their communities. The purposes of the AOM are to instill positive values in young athletes and teens to support and guide them as they put their values into practice. An additional purpose is to teach and model skills that youth need and challenge them to put their own athletic and reasoning skills to use. Here at the Youth Center, we help young people be optimistic about their futures--by starting Athlete of the Month, we hope to motivate each individual to strive for his or her personal best.
Foster Human Development
New technology has always been an important part of learning and development. During the course of brainstorming new ideas for our art program, Light Writing was suggested. Physical experimentation with light and the technology used to capture it helped explain the somewhat mysterious workings of the ordinary digital camera.10 young adults volunteered and split up into two groups. They were constantly coming up with new creative ideas, deciding on how to make their “pose” better. It was nice to see them voting on which idea they liked best. Because they only had 15 seconds before the shutter closed, they had to work quickly and as a team. Teamwork behind as well as in front of the camera was an important factor during this project.Some amazing pictures were created as a result of this creative project.
Opportunities to branch out in the world of youth sports are just around the corner! Registrations are being accepted for volleyball, indoor soccer, basketball, roller hockey, lacrosse, flag football, and many more. Learn skills, experience a new game, play with new friends. All offerings can be reviewed in the Spring/Summer Recreation Guide.
Janet Leus from the Special Needs Program attended the KIT (Kids Included Together) Conference in San Diego in early April. It is KIT’s mission to support recreational, child development, and youth programs that include children with and without disabilities.
Special Needs held a Parent Information Night on Tuesday, April 15th where staff discussed possible upcoming program changes.Parents gave their input and program ideas. A parent survey will be mailed to gather further input to assist staff in program planning.
The Healthy Cities Tutoring Program is in full force this spring with 218 students placed at six schools throughout San Carlos. There are 185 tutors working with these students representing a cross section of our community. Members of local services clubs have recently stepped forward to become tutors, providing help to students that have been on our waiting lists. Tutors and parents from the San Carlos schools were invited to attend a workshop on Effective Discipline for Children on April 9. The workshop was led by parent educator Susan Stone Belton and was very helpful to all who attended this Healthy Cities event. The Healthy Cities Recognition Reception is being held on Wednesday, May 28 at Central Middle School Library at 7:00 pm. The event will honor all of the tutors that have participated in the program this year and acknowledge the tutors that have reached their 5 and 10 year anniversaries of service in the program.
Protect Environmental Resources
San Carlos Green has led the effort to improve Vista Park, a native vegetation, no chemical pilot site.They have accomplished a great deal:
- Native plants are already blooming and the wildflowers we planted are sprouting.
- San Carlos Green’s fourth volunteer day two weeks ago was a great success installing two 1,000+ sq ft. experimental restoration plots in the meadow area.
- First they laid down newspaper to smother the invasive grasses, covered that with several inches of compost and hydro seed
- Second they roto-tilled, covered that with several inches of compost and hydro seed
- Parks staff provided the wonderful compost. It was perfectly timed and placed and almost all of it was used.
- We will determine which method is most successful by the number of weeds that show up in the plots
- This fall, we will plan restoration of the entire grassy hill using the most effective method
- Note that these plots were placed at the very south end of the Park to avoid any interference with July 4 festivities.
- The neighbors seem to be pleased with the entire project
Thank you to San Carlos Green for the leadership and to Gachina Landscape Management who provided most of the labor, the grass and wildflower seed and recruited the company that did the hydro seeding. San Carlos Green passes along special thanks to Councilmember Omar for his hard labor on his way to helping his friend to be a groom!
The Youth Center Agro Club has completed their spring planting.Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, basil, rosemary and potatoes have been planted and are thriving.Youth Center participants water and weed everyday and look forward to a bountiful harvest during the summer and fall months.We teach our kids that it takes labor, nurturing, and feeding to bring a garden to fruition, much like the time and care it takes for our youth to grow into competent, caring adults.
Spring Compost Giveaways for San Carlos residents were held April 5th & 19th at Highlands Park.Up to 1 cubic yard of compost (equivalent to 6 full garbage cans) was made available free of charge by SBWMA-RethinkWaste, and Allied Waste.Free evening Composting Workshops, given by San Mateo County RecycleWorks, are held monthly at the Adult Community Center through August.Increasing the opportunities to educate our residents and assist them in ‘going green’ is a valuable service.
Facilitate Community Problem Solving
The Youth Center is nearing its 9th anniversary and some of the equipment and technology in the SCYC is becoming outdated.With that in mind and taking into consideration how much this generation relies on advanced technology, the Youth Advisory Council donated $2,500 to the SCYC to purchase a new HDTV for the TV Lounge.When the students are done studying and exercising for the day, they can relax and enjoy the company of fellow students and mentoring staff with a brand new HDTV.
Statistics demonstrate a dramatic increase in children being diagnosed with autism. In an effort to best serve community members and those children with autistic features that we are seeing more frequently in our programs, the San Carlos Parks and Recreation Department is partnering with Pacific Autism Center for Education to provide an Autism Awareness Training for San Carlos Recreation Department and School District staff working with youth. PACE is providing these trainings, at no cost to attendees, with grant funding received. This will be a valuable forum for Parks & Recreation staff to come together with School District staff to learn new tools to best serve the youth in San Carlos with special needs.
To provide in-service training in public education/ recreation settings to educate and prepare teachers and after school program providers to receive young children with autism from special education early intervention programs.
§To give primary grade teachers, preschool teachers and recreation program leaders the tools to handle the behavioral symptoms of autism, such as the compulsive repetitive motions, within the mainstream classroom/ program setting.
§ To help children with autism be successful in mainstream programs by giving service providers the tools to help their students manage the symptoms of autism.
Burton Park Playground Renovation
The Project is currently out for construction bids. Award of the construction contract will be recommended to the City Council at the meeting on May 12. Project completion is targeted for August 1.
A wonderful donor just informed us they will donate all 70 boulders to be used in the new playground.This will save the project approximately $18,000.We hope to be able to reveal the name of this generous donor in the near future.
We now have $774,454 for the $850,000 project in cash and commitments.The Parks and Recreation Foundation has hired LOOK Design to implement a fundraising campaign that includes a Laurel Street banner, posters being distributed throughout the community, a sign at Burton Park and a fundraising mailer sent to all residents and businesses in San Carlos.This campaign began the week of April 21. We have also met with the Vice President for Grant making at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) to seek additional support from the SVCF.
Innovative Fundraisers
San Carlos children had a fundraiser of their own for Burton Park Playground Renovation.Chase and Natalie both were turning 11 this April, and with their love of the TV show, “The Apprentice”, came up with a special fundraising idea.The children celebrated their birthdays together by hosting an "Apprentice” Birthday Party at Burton Park to raise money for the playground renovation.Just like the TV show, "Celebrity Apprentice", where the celebrities get to donate their winnings to their favorite charity, the children selected Burton Park Playground renovation to benefit from their fundraising efforts.Since they both often play at Burton Park Playground, they had the idea to invite about 30 of their combined friends, break them in to four groups and have them each market and sell lemonade on April 27 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm.More than $650 was raised for the Burton Park Playground renovation.
Two other young children sold lemonade the previous week and donated the proceeds to the Playground. Everyone is helping in any way they can.
Yet another innovative fundraiser is planned to help the City of San Carlos close the gap of funding needed to renovate the most utilized playground in town – Burton Park Playground. Buy a frozen yogurt at Harmony Frozen Yogurt, located at 1226 Arroyo Avenue in San Carlos on Saturday, May 3 & Sunday, May 4, and Harmony Yogurt will donate $1.00 for all frozen yogurts sold.
Hometown Days will be highlighted by a concert featuring Choo Choo Soul with Genevieve from Playhouse Disney as mentioned above.
Handprint tiles will again be sold through Laurel Street Arts. We have only 50 tiles left and hope to help those parents and grandparents who missed the earlier sale.
Provide Recreational Experiences
The Adult Community Center and its wonderful participants hosted 15 Cub Scouts who needed to earn their Citizen Badge. The boys were excited to see our ping pong tables set up for them, allowing them to also earn their Ping Pong Badge. SCUM (San Carlans Using Macintosh) members opened the computer lab and gave them a lesson on Google Earth, while others played games in the lounge. This was a fantastic intergenerational day for all.
Play Ball! Opening Day of the official 2008 Spring/Summer season of Adult Softball is May 2nd. Men’s League games can be enjoyed most evenings including Mondays and Wednesdays at Highlands Park and Tuesdays and Fridays at Burton Park. For Sunday afternoon family fun, take in a Coed game at Burton Park. Anyone wishing to join these activities may call the Athletics office to be put on the ‘Free Agent list’. Managers can recruit from the list to fill any team openings.
