Association Honors New Sitka Parks and Rec

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Created on Friday, 27 September 2024 14:15

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
    Only two years after its formation, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department has earned a statewide accolade for its role in bringing community programs to life, from city league volleyball and basketball to school lunch and summer camps for kids.
    Kevin Knox, who heads the program, and department staff accepted the Outstanding Organization award for the department Thursday at the annual meeting of the Alaska Recreation and Park Association in Wrangell.

Elle Campbell and Kevin Knox hold the Alaska Recreation and Park Association award in Wrangell recently. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)

    The Sitka department was formed in 2022, with Barbara Morse as recreation coordinator, after the Sitka Health Summit chose a city public recreation program as its goal for 2021, filling the void left when the Sitka School District closed the Community Schools program for lack of funding.
    In its first two years the city-funded parks and rec has started or restarted city league sports, summer camps for kids and public access to the Blatchley swimming pool.
    Knox says programs took off so quickly in large part because of the pent-up demand.
    “There’s so much backing and demand from the community for it... We’ve had such a great outpouring of support, from instructors that want to hold classes like our gymnastics instructors, to our after-school programs that we provide, like city league basketball and volleyball.”
    In her nomination letter to ARPA, city recreation activities specialist Elle Campbell stressed the importance of Barb Morse’s role in reviving the program.
    “Re-establishing this recreation program was no small feat, and we are immeasurably grateful for her dedication to quality, affordable recreation opportunities in Sitka. Under her leadership, city league basketball and volleyball was brought back, as well as a new gymnastics program for kids,” Campbell wrote.
    Campbell told the Sentinel that the nomination was largely aimed at giving “a big public thank you to Barbara Morse for doing all of the work that she did to restart this. That is not a small task or a small feat. I really, really want to make sure that that’s called out.”
    Knox joined Campbell in expressing appreciation of Morse’s work, and was glad to see her recognized. She has remained involved with recreation organizing in town even after leaving the recreation coordinator position.
    “It was just a really sweet honor to accept the award for Sitka,” Knox said. “I think, again, it’s a testament to the community support and the great work that Barb did in getting it kicked off, and the Sitka Recreation Initiative getting Parks and Rec established once again in Sitka, and we hope to continue it.”
    Campbell’s letter to also noted that the department works hand in hand with groups such as the Sitka Sound Science Center, Sitka Recreation Foundation and Sitka Conservation Society. The history of current Parks and Rec programming, she noted, reaches back to the Community Schools program run by Barb Morse and Woody Widmark.
    ARPA is a Juneau-based nonprofit organization promoting “the personal, environmental, social and economic benefits of parks, recreation and wildlands,” their website states.
    Sitka Parks and Rec is now in the final stages of reopening the Blatchley pool to public use after a yearlong closure, and has hired an aquatics supervisor for the facility.
    “It’s the most common question we get in the office these days, ‘when pool?’ Now we get to say, ‘soon,’” Knox said. He hopes to see the pool open in October.
    The department is in a “really robust spot” now, but is managing carefully to meet the community’s recreation needs, “but also not getting too big too fast either, because we only have so many resources to commit to it,” Knox said. “That’s been the traditional balancing act you have to strike.”