The final Hastings Rec+Art+Police community event of the summer took place Wednesday, August 5, at Lions Park.
Although two of the five scheduled events were canceled because of rain, the three that were held drew more than 537 children and family members combined.
KDWA caught up with Hastings Parks and Recreation Programming Specialist Paige Marschall Bigler for a recap of this year’s Rec+Art+Police program.
“So, we are closing out our Rec+Art+Police program series for this summer at Lions Park. We had five scheduled and three go for weather. However, those three events were the highest attendance we’ve seen yet to date in our last five years of doing the programming. Today here we have 127 kiddos. Our last event, we had 240 kiddos and families. So it’s really fun to see that attendance grow, and we’re hoping for great weather at all the events next year. But we have a ton of events coming up yet still this summer.”
The Rec+Art+Police events wouldn’t have been possible without support from local sponsors and community
partners. Bigler highlighted the organizations that helped make the summer program a success.
“So our sponsor for our program series, who helps with funding, includes SC Toys right in downtown Hastings, the toy shop here, as well as Country Financial, Mandy Bremmer, who actually just opened an office right here in Hastings downtown, and then we have the Rivertown Lions Club, who helps fund our programming as well. And then our partners who help with in-kind donations: Hastings Family Service provides lunches, snacks, and water to kids here on site. They prepare 125 lunches for each of our events, and those are free to kiddos. And then we also have the police staff who come out on site, and the Hastings Prescott Area Arts Council, who coordinates all of our activities, volunteers on site, preps all the supplies, does all the examples, and gets everything ready for our art activities throughout the summer.”
While the Rec+Art+Police series has wrapped up for the season, there are still plenty of free community events on
the Parks and Recreation calendar. Bigler highlighted several upcoming events at Levee Park.
“We have different program series down at Levee Park. Some of our program series still coming up is our Music and Market events that run Thursday nights through the end of August from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. We have market vendors, food trucks, our kids’ zone, and different bands every Thursday through the end of August, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Then we have our Movies in the Park series. We have two more left. On August 14, activities begin at 7:30 p.m., and Super Mario Galaxy starts at 8:30 p.m. Then on September 11, we’ll show Lilo & Stitch.
We also have two more Comedy in the Park events on Tuesday, August 25, and Tuesday, September 15,
from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
And finally, our Storytime in the Park series continues on Wednesday, August 19, and September 16, from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.”
You can find links to resources mentioned in this report on KDWA.com
[Click the soundbite to listen to the report.]