GUERNSEY – At a time when many sports and activities are being canceled nationwide due to the COVID restrictions, the Tri-Cities Parks and Recreation Department is coming out strong but cautiously with projects and activities for Guernsey.

In 1982, the Guernsey parks and recreation group split off from Platte County Parks and Recreation and formed their own nonprofit corporation. They have had successful programs ever since.

Parks and Rec director Lori Ibara said, “We had a big enough population that we were able to split and have our own district, which is in coordination with our school district.”

The Parks and Recreation offices are housed in the Guernsey-Sunrise school building. The stipulation for board members is they all must live within the school district. Currently the TCPR is looking to fill a vacant board member seat due to the resignation of a member who had to move because of BNSF shutting down in the Guernsey area and relocating him.

According to the TCPR mission statement in 1982, the organization “was formed in July 1982 to provide programs and activities for patrons of Platte County School District #2. The organization is administered by its own board of directors directed by PSCS#2. When the organization was started it was funded by tax revenues through the district, activity fees and private donations. Today funding is by tax revenues, sales tax from the Town of Guernsey and activity fees.”

Ibarra, who grew up in Hartville and graduated from Guernsey-Sunrise High School was a board member for seven years before she applied for and was given the position of executive director.  

TCPR Sponsors many activities such as T-ball, flag football, Little League, youth basketball, tumbling, cheerleading, yoga, cardio workouts, weight room activities, coed volleyball and coed basketball to just mention a few of the many things it does for the community.

Another interesting program that was developed and implemented by the TCPR is a healthy lifestyle program called “Healthy You Challenge Weight Loss and Lifestyle Change.” It is a total lifestyle challenge to not only lose weight, but to become healthy in changing your lifestyle. The program was cut short this last spring due to COVID restrictions but is planning on returning strong as these restrictions are lifting.

This past summer, TCPR helped sponsor the Summer Reading Program end of the summer pool party as well as a two-day event for pre-elementary age students called “Wiggles and Giggles” that is run in a partnership with the Guernsey Early Childhood Center.

“This is preschool and is part of their recruitment, to get kids to sign up for their program,” Ibarra said. “They just got permission to do it, and it usually runs in June, but because of COVID it was put on hold. They just called us last week, so we got this all organized in one week.

The Wiggles and Giggles program was a success this year even on short notice.

“These kids are all enrolled or are going to enroll,” said Danielle Noggle, center coordinator at Guernsey Early Childhood Development. “This is what we do with the community is partner with each other. Lori has done it in the past, but this is the first year that we’ve come together to do it.”

Noggle said that thus far, the biggest challenge was recruitment because of the COVID, parents aren’t sure if they want their kids to come back full time. So far, she has 35 kids enrolled for the coming year in the age group of 0-5.

“Mostly everybody is just wanting to get back into a good routine,” Noggle said. “They want to do some fun stuff and they want to be normal again.”

The center has early head start which is 0-3, pre-school academy which is 3-5 and that’s paid tuition, and then, head start which is 3-5 and that is income based.

This will be Noggles fourth year as coordinator for the center and she is also heading into her second year as chair for TCPR.

The philosophy of TCPR according to their literature is that they “offer a variety of youth and adult activities. Our organization gives scholarships and help our youth with proper equipment for any activity necessary. We do feel that there should be no child left out.”

Also an interesting thing about the adult programs is that the registration fees are used to help fund youth programs, and when adults sign up and participate in the adult programs they are defraying the cost of the youth programs.

If you have any questions about the programs or would like to participate, coach, teach, referee or organize groups, you can call the office at (307) 836-2736 or visit them on Facebook or at their website: www.guernseytricityrecreation.com