November 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 56

F E AT U R E

Stories
from the

ROAD
When NRPA staﬀ visits program sites, the experiences are many and unexpected

P

Simple, right? Young children learn to swim in your pools. Seniors walk without worry through your parks. Your sports fields are fi lled most every evening and weekend. Your staff is already planning next year's Special Olympics. You
see these things; we all see these things-these aspects of parks and recreation are
plainly visible. But, what about the not-so-obvious facets of the work we do that are
changing lives every day in every community.

Park and recreation agencies, collectively, are
the largest provider of meals to low-income children each summer and during after-school hours,
providing some two million children roughly 500
million meals. Amazing, isn't it? Unfortunately, there
are still 15 million low-income children in the United
States who aren't being reached. Recognizing this
need, the Walmart Foundation and NRPA teamed up
to further increase the impact of park and recreation
food service programs through grants to 30 agencies. I had the pleasure of visiting several of these
agencies this past summer. Likewise, my colleagues
in NRPA's Partner and Business Development department also paid visits to some of the communities
they are working with this year. These visits allow
us to see firsthand how grants are being implemented and what their impact in the community is. They
also provide a window into the array of programs
and services made possible through parks and

54 Parks & Recreation N O V E M B E R

2 0 1 1 w w w . N R P A . O R G

recreation. Interestingly, these visits have shown us
far more than what we thought we already knew.
Site visits typically are a condition of NRPA's
agreements with funders, and they result in a plethora of notes and responses to questions to be used
for assessment and sharing of best practices. However, it is common for these visit transcripts to be
interlaced with notations about matters not directly
related to the program being examined. It's these
ancillary notes that often reflect the most lasting
impressions-with shared with total modesty-
" of course we're doing this. "
A few of us recently put our heads together, recalling instances during our site visits that left us
wondering: Have we been in the dark about commonplace accomplishments, or did we stumble across extraordinary doings? As you join us
through the NRPA staff journal, recounting some of
our more memorable visits, you be the judge.

dreAmStime

By
Jimmy o'Connor
with
Zarnaaz Bashir,
Maggie Cooper,
kellie May,
shelley o'Brien,
erika terl, and
rebecca Wickline

ARKS AND RECREATION BUILDS HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES AND IMPROVES LIVES.

November 2011 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2011 - Parks & Recreation

November 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 1
November 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 2
November 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 3
November 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 4
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/november-2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/october-2013
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/august-2013
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/july-2011
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