Youth Sports Alliance ACTiV8 Programs Expand to Help Kids Explore Their Inner Creative
The Park City and Summit County community is lucky to have quality programming for our youth. Taking the lead on after-school programming is Youth Sports Alliance through their ACTiV8 Program.
Youth Programs Director Heather Sims discusses how the program came to be. “ACTiV8 is a collaboration of local businesses, non-profit, sports clubs and local schools that provide supervised after-school activities on early release days for teens and tweens. The programming is available for middle schoolers and junior high students who would like to try later entry sports or lifestyle activities such as arts, cooking and theater. Students have the option of choosing from three activities every month. It is a short-term commitment and allows them to try something new. Programs are made as low cost as possible to allow all kids to have this opportunity and it gives comfort to working parents who know their kids are safe and having fun.”
Youth Sports Alliance identified a gap of time after school that needed to be filled with quality experiences. “YSA started the program to give students at Ecker Hill something to do on Friday afternoons other than take the free buses to Redstone to hang out. Initially we thought it would be something similar to the Get Out & Play program until we met with a focus group of students. Once meeting with them, we found out that not everyone wanted to do sports, especially if they were doing it on the weekend or during the week. We asked them ‘if we could put anything on for you what would you do?’.” This is where Heather and the YSA team learned that kids wanted to take art classes, specifically in photography and the culinary arts. “Our focus changed completely. We had every venue we could think of around town round a table and said we are going to put on a program and we need your help. All the venues knew that this age group needed activities and everyone was willing to help.” notes Heather.
When looking further into ACTiV8, I was personally impressed with the amount of educational offerings related to arts and culture. Heather notes that the creative programs have been a total success, and have provided value to the kids who participate. “This area has lots of opportunities for sports and there are plenty of kids that love sports but also love the arts, or kids that find sport is just not their thing! With the ability to get a grant to buy eight cameras, photography has probably been our most successful arts program along with Illustration and YouTheater. It allows the students to discover their creative side in an affordable fun environment with no pressure. The other side of this is it is offering lifelong learning skills whether its teaching kids about light in photographs or how to cook themselves a meal.” Kids who are participating in these programs are excited about showing their parents new skills, and look forward to trying new activities.
ACTiV8 provides programming at Ecker Hill Middle School, South Summit Middle School, Park City Day Middle School, and Treasure Mountain Junior High students on early release days. They have just started a pilot program in South Summit and their long-term goal is to include North Summit and Wasatch County.
ACTiV8 is currently enrolling students for their winter programs, they offer scholarships for every program. Go to https://ysaparkcity.org/activ8 for more information and to register.