Piñon and Chamisa Gym Enhancement

[Kate Cleveland]

Hello,

My name is Kate Cleveland and I have been a resident of Los Alamos for 8 years. In this time, my two school-aged children have participated in a variety of sports and other activities provided by the various entities we have available to us in this amazing town. As parents who believe in letting our children try out  everything they are interested in, both my husband and I see a huge gap in the available activities once a certain age or level is reached, especially with regard to sports. As kids who have dabbled in many different extracurriculars, neither of my children are interested in joining a competitive league and being solely dedicated to one sport at their young ages (and quite frankly, we are not interested in driving to Bernalillo every weekend or touring the entire state so our kids can play!).

While this is not an easy problem to overcome, expansion of the gyms at the elementary schools in question is a great start. This would enable more availability of space for sports and extracurricular activities right here in our town. Through one of the many groups I am involved with in our community, I was informed of a program that is in development at The Family YMCA where kids would participate in intramural-style recreational sports. This program aims to capture those athletes who are interested in playing various sports, but may not be physically, financially, or motivationally able to play a single sport year-round at the competitive level. I feel this would be an extreme asset to our community by allowing many more kids to play and participate, which is an excellent deterrent to risky behavior, among other benefits. Expanding both gyms in White Rock would allow space for programs such as this to come to fruition.

Thank you for your time,
Kate Cleveland