By Jason Shriner
Many of you probably don’t know this, but before I started working for the City of Manassas Park, Department of Parks and Recreation I was a baker. You might think the best thing about being a baker is getting to eat all those delicious treats. For me, the most rewarding part of being a baker was seeing my customer’s face light up when they saw their cake or took a bite of my handcrafted pie. When I decided to leave the food industry, I knew that whatever my next career was, it had to involve making people happy. Fortunately for me, working in Parks and Recreation is all about bringing services and happiness to the people in the community.
I’m very excited to have the opportunity to give you a little sneak peek of what’s coming up for the Manassas Park Community Center for spring and summer 2016. The first most exciting change is to our program catalog, the MOSAIC. As opposed to the previous bi-annual distribution, the MOSAIC will now be coming out four times a year. This change means more programs will be available for our patrons! Each time the MOSAIC comes out, a fresh set of programming opens up. This includes swim lessons, fitness classes, and arts and culture programs. Since programming typically revolves around the MOSAIC, this modification gives us greater flexibility in creating new programs, finding instructors, and incorporating customer feedback. We couldn’t be more excited for this change and we hope you’ll see a lot of the benefit from it!
For those of you who have been our loyal customers over the past several years, this change will affect when summer camps will be announced. Typically, the Spring/Summer MOSAIC is released in February. With summer camps being announced so early, many families expressed they found it difficult to plan especially in terms of their schedules and finances. We agree! Committing to a summer camp four months in advance is really difficult! By releasing the summer MOSAIC in April, we hope this makes coordinating easier on the families who have come to rely on us for summer recreation!
Let’s move on to the fun stuff! Below are some exciting new programs coming up in spring and summer. Please keep in mind that this is a sneak peek and these program offerings may change when the MOSAICs are officially released in February and April.
The Aquatics Division will now be offering teen (ages 12-17) and senior (ages 55+) swim lessons! We have received many requests for these specialized lessons and we are listening! The teen swim lessons will occur right after school (Manassas Park City Schools students can actually take the activity bus directly to the community center) and the senior swim lessons are scheduled to take place in the morning.
Our incredibly popular Hola Kids Spanish Immersion class for preschoolers (ages 3-5) will return with more sessions! Ms. Lolly’s popular music and movement classes have also been expanded with one session starting as young as 16 months. Do your little ones love making crafts? Stick Creations and Puppet Pals will have them making projects from scratch using popsicle sticks and other common materials!
For our school age patrons, (ages 6-11) Simply Science is back with more hands on experiments! Ms. Clemons is returning with all new Stitch-In-Time sewing classes including new machine classes. The
The Recreation Services Division is launching the new Summer Youth Basketball League (ages 8-11). Interested in STEM education? We’re partnering with the organization, Aviation Ed, Inc., to bring Aviation (1st-3rd grade) and Aerospace (4th-6th grade) programs in the summer! Be sure to tell your aspiring engineers about it!
We (6th-12th grade) are introducing two new exciting teen programs! Are you ready for your teen to make dinner for you? The Mexican Cooking Class will teach them how to make enchiladas, flautas, tacos, sopas, and flan. I am so there!! While they’re immersing themselves in culture, why not jump into the new Spanish 101 class where they will learn the basics to learning a second language.
Ms. Clemons will also start teaching adult Stitch-In-Time sewing classes (ages 18+) for the new year! Do you love ballroom and salsa dancing? The new Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata for Beginners class will be perfect for you! We’ll also be launching a new adult drop in activity in March. The adult monthly board game night (ages 16+) will be every 4th Friday of the month where we’ll be playing games like Catan and Pandemic.
Our immensely popular Pickleball programs return for another season for our senior clientele (ages 55+). If you’ve traveled around the United States , join us for Road Trip 66. This program offers a state-to-state perspective where patrons can share stories, photos, and other mementos from their travels. You’ll be the master of every potluck and picnic you attend after taking the Easy Gourmet classes! Learn easy and quick four to five ingredient recipes that are wonderfully delicious.
Summer camps will be a blast this year! Whether your child is in the playschool camps (ages 3-5) such as Sportacular or Superheroes Unleashed or opts for the school age camps (ages 6-11) such as Dance Camp, Clay Creations, or Samurai Warriors; your children will get the mental stimulation and exercise to keep them both cognitively and physically fit long before the new school year begins!
We’re raring and ready to go for 2016 and we hope you’re just as excited for what the new year will bring as we are! There are just too many new great programs to list here so be sure to come visit us at 99 Adams Street in Manassas Park when the MOSAICs come out in February and April. Feel free to give us a call at 703.335.8872 if you have any questions about the community center or our upcoming programming. When you stop by, be sure to ask for a tour so we can show you all the awesome amenities our wonderful facility has to offer. See you soon!
