City employees working to keep recreation opportunities going this summer

MOSES LAKE — Keeping recreation opportunities going in Moses Lake has been a challenge as the COVID-19 pandemic has created a number of hurdles in the process.

Moses Lake city employees, including Moses Lake Parks & Recreation supervisors Carrie Hoiness and Tom Los, and Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Manager Dollie Boyd, have worked to keep recreation activities available amid the closures and restrictions in place.

Hoiness said she and her staff have tried to think outside of the box to keep programs available this summer for the community.

Programs aren’t the same this summer, she said, and she’s had to alter schedules and guidelines to keep them up and running.

“I have really had to get creative and read through how to make all of our programs run, whether they’re on a smaller scale, or just having to cancel, period,” Hoiness said. “Some of the choices to cancel are not department-decided, but instructor-decided.”

While some programs aren’t able to return due to Grant County being in Phase 2 in the reopening process, the instructors for other programs may not feel comfortable, she explained.

Summer athletic camps for bowling, golf and soccer were all canceled, Hoiness said, with a number of factors playing a role in the decision. Many opportunities are still available for kids and the community, she added.

The parks and rec department recently finished up a tennis camp for kids between the ages of 4 and 12, with five or fewer kids in each age group, Hoiness said. Also, a senior walking program was started to incentivize exercise.

“It’s a free program, and it’s just encouraging seniors to get out and find a walking path, maybe a city trail nearby their home that they didn’t know was there, to create a healthy lifestyle, especially during the pandemic when they can’t go to some of the normal places they work out,” Hoiness said.

The program lets seniors track their progress for a chance to win prizes donated from both local and non-local businesses, she said.

Power Pilates, Zumba classes, sewing and quilting classes are just a few of the other opportunities she noted that the staff has worked to offer as well. Currently, Hoiness said, she’s working on trying to get co-ed softball running, but has to wait until the county reaches Phase 3 for that to happen. One of the biggest programs Hoiness said they have kept going is their Explorer’s Day Camp, beginning on June 8 and averaging between nine and 12 kids per day. Kids have activities, virtual field trips, meals and snacks provided, and weekly themes to keep things fresh, she added.

“My staff has gotten super creative this year, just due to the circumstances,” Hoiness said. “It’s Christmas in July week right now. They have a Christmas tree up, they have lights around the door when you walk in, they have snowmen, Santa Claus, reindeer.”

Hoiness said they’ve had outreach to keep the program running after the scheduled final date of Aug. 28, in the event that school is shifted to a virtual or half-virtual format next year.

While it’s something they’re definitely considering, she said, there are a lot of factors they’ll still need to address before the decision is made on how many of their programs will change once school returns.

“It kind of depends on some things,” Hoiness said. “So if school is going to open or if it’s not going to open, or are they gonna open their facilities to us? A lot of our programs are based in school facilities; a lot of our instructors are teachers or coaches from the high school.”

Dollie Boyd, with Moses Lake Museum & Art Center, said they’ve also had to get creative in what to offer, having had the museum’s doors closed to the public since mid-March.

Boyd said they’d hoped to reopen when the county reached Phase 3 in July. Now, that seems unlikely.

“We’ve come up with some limited programming, and some outreach programming we’re planning to do in the next month or two, to remind people that we miss them and we want them back when Phase 3 happens,” Boyd said.

The museum’s current exhibit on musician Johnny Cash and his famous 1968 Folsom comeback concert likely won’t get seen by many people in person, Boyd said, as the exhibit is set to come down the first week in August.

“We’re going to have one of the staffers do a virtual tour, which we can post on social media, and online, so people can experience that,” Boyd said. “In conjunction, we’re doing a Johnny Cash lookalike contest.”

The museum’s other exhibit, “1968: The Year that Rocked Washington,” will be available a little bit longer, hopefully giving audiences the chance to come and experience it once the county reaches Phase 3, Boyd said. Johnny Cash will be replaced with exhibits on women’s suffrage in Washington and the rest of the country, and an exhibit from the New York Historical Society depicting black citizenship from the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era through 1919.

Other programs the museum is offering for the community include “rag rug classes” on July 23 and 24 in Civic Center Park behind the museum, as well as a special booth at the Moses Lake Farmers Market on July 25, Aug. 15 and Aug. 29.

Boyd said they’ve really had to think outside of the box as they try to plan for a situation we might all just have to learn to live with.

“It’s really stretched our creativity because we’re used to just opening our doors, and people come to us and we plan our events inside our four walls,” Boyd said. “So, we’re really having to think what can we do that will be safe for our staff, and our stakeholders, and what’s going to be attractive to them.”

Tom Los, recreation supervisor with Moses Lake Parks & Recreation, was integral in getting the department’s Gnome Scavenger Hunt going earlier in the spring, an initiative he took knowing people were itching for a chance to get out after the first few weeks of the quarantine.

Since then, Los said, his primary focus was on trying to get Surf ‘n Slide Water Park open to the public this summer. As he held out hope that the county would reach the circumstances necessary to open, he said, he wanted to make sure that vital programs, such as swim lessons, were still available.

“I got a few of my lifeguards together, and we went down with siblings, and kids that they babysit, and we did swim lessons,” Los said. “I filmed them, so I’m working on that right now. That way, the parents can watch our videos, download our checklist that we use, and hopefully take their kids out and give them swim lessons.”

Taking swim lessons away from about 1,200 kids in the community posed a risk that remained a great concern, Los said. Even if the pool hadn’t ultimately closed for the rest of the summer, he said he wanted to have that resource available for parents in the community.

The whole summer, Los said, has consisted of working to keep things as normal possible and trying to remain optimistic about where things were headed. He said there’s been a great deal of support and understanding from the community as he and his staff have tried to navigate this situation.

“It felt good knowing our community was behind us, and I think we’ve had the support of our community because they saw we were trying to do everything possible,” Los said. “And if it didn’t happen, it wasn’t because we didn’t try, or we gave up.”

Currently, Los said, he’s working on helping Moses Lake BMX get going this week, making sure they’re meeting all of the required guidelines and protocols in place. He said the recreation opportunities are still out there, but added they’ve just required a little more creativity.

“People right now are looking for something to do because their norm is shaken up,” Los said.

Casey McCarthy can be reached via email at cmcarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.