Rollin' Recmobile brings the fun

 

Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation's Rollin' Recmobile started its week of fun this morning at Redmond Park in the Wellington Heights neighborhood. The Recmobile van was there at 9:30, and staff had unloaded various balls, an inflatable play area...

...hula hoops, and so forth. There were also some people from Linn County Elections, with booths for mock elections, as well as information and registration forms for real elections.

Voter outreach coordinator Valerie Smith said they would be joining every Recmobile stop this week and next, and then will return for the last week in with more information on absentee ballots. (Don't tell the legislature!)

For awhile, we had the park to ourselves, but towards 10:00 the first little boys arrived. After 10:00 more people came, mostly supervised small children, but the Elections people had some business, too. There were three blonde boys with their dad doing impressive things with the soccer balls, especially considering at their age I didn't know what soccer was. The splash pads went on, though they had few takers on a morning that was cool for June.

As of 10:30, with another hour to go, I counted 14 children, about half horsing around with the balls near the splash pad, and about half gathered around the staff near the van. 

Another van pulled up just then with what looked like coolers, which might have been the lunch promised for 11:30.

How do you assess the success of a program like this? It wasn't terribly crowded at Redmond Park this morning, but that might have been more amenable to some. (It would have been for little me.) Did it get children to the park who wouldn't otherwise have been there? Did children play together who wouldn't otherwise have met? I'm not sure about actual or potential publicity, because I'm not plugged into what young families might be plugged into.

The Recmobile makes 15 stops throughout the week at 13 parks (hitting Redmond twice, as well as Cleveland Park). It also serves as a Wifi hotspot and a Neighborhood Resource Center. It runs through early-to-mid August. This year it is funded in part by a grant from the National League of Cities.

Monday 9:30 Redmond, 1:30 Jacolyn

Tuesday 9:30 Daniels, 1:30 Hayes, 4:30 Reed

Wednesday 9:30 Delaney, 1:30 Cedar Valley, 4:30 Cleveland

Thursday 9:30 Time Check, 1:30 Greene Square

Friday 9:30 Hidder, 1:30 Bever

Saturday 10 Kenwood, 12 Redmond, 2 Cleveland

SEE ALSO: "Developing Redmond Park, Avoiding Type II Error," 28 May 2019