The City of Chestermere Parks and Recreation department is bringing community involvement, arts, culture, and play to the forefront in the community.
The Parks and Recreation department’s goals align with the City of Chestermere’s Amazing strategic vision by increasing the recreational potential in the city, providing a high quality of services and amenities, creating opportunities for connecting, supporting social and cultural inclusion and diversity.
“We’re looking at service gaps, what’s being offered from the city and other local organizations, what demographics and being served, which are not, what recreational opportunities are there, and where we are lacking,” said Community Recreation Coordinator of Community Operations Katelyn Richards.
“We look at service trends, what’s new and exciting in recreation, what other communities are doing, and what would be a good fit in our community,” Richards said.
She added, “We’re always looking for community feedback. That’s the purpose of what we do, and we want to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the community.”
The Parks and Recreation department also includes the National Recreation Framework, where the ultimate goal is to provide all Canadians with what they need out of recreation in their municipalities.
The goals of the National Recreation Framework include active living, inclusion, access, connecting people and nature, supportive environments, and recreation capacity.
To meet the goals of the National Recreation Framework, Chestermere’s Parks and Recreation department provided a variety of activities for all ages, such as the Santa Fun Run, Pitch-In Week where over 30 bags of litter was collected, the Green Shack program, and the Mobile Adventure Playground.
“We had a really great summer, a lot of family play, a lot of creative socializing and healthy risk tasking. All of the good stuff we need for healthy child development was happening with the mobile adventure playground,” Richards said.
While the Mobile Adventure Playground promotes unstructured play, the Green Shack program focuses on physical literacy skills, fundamental movement skills, and building confidence and motivation.
While youth in the community had opportunities to learn, and play together, the Parks and Recreation department was also inspired to provide adult workshops, such as the first-ever Holiday Planter Workshop.
“It was adult programming, which we haven’t dabbled in before. It was a great success. It was a really unique and creative opportunity, and it also got to showcase our wonderful gardening staff,” Richards said.
This year, the Parks and Recreation department plans to continue collaborating with local organizations in Chestermere and the surrounding area through the Chestermere Recreation Coalition.
“The Recreation Coalition Get Messy Play Day was a huge success, and event that offered free opportunities to play through unstructured and messy activities,” Richards said.
“There was not an iPad in site, children were on slip ‘n slides, there was sand play, and a water fight,” she added.
The Parks and Recreation department will continue completing projects to increase the recreation potential in the city.
“Through public engagement conducted in 2017, we found out we needed to revitalize the off-leash area,” Richards said.
Tree beds were planted, landscaping was completed, and a dog beach was added, along with additional gravel pathways and benches.
Bike Parks upgrades were completed, with the installation of a shade pergola and landscaping upgrades to beautify the area.
New signage, buoys, and swim lines were also added to the lake.
“We did a lot of work when it came to the lake. We put a lot into our pilot programs, and we’re going to continue those this year. It was a very successful year this year when it came to the lake,” Richards said.
Moving forward, the Parks and Recreation department is going to introduce new programs including arts, culture, public art, busking theatre, edible garden, mobile skate park, and fitness and health workshops.
Along with working on projects such as addressing missing pathway links and improving safety, public engagement on a new off-leash area, and design work for a segment of pathway on Chestermere Boulevard.
