RecMobile ready to bring parks to children

Lee Scrivner

Monday, Sept. 4, 2000 | 9:53 a.m.

For children living in parts of the city unadorned with parks, the search for after-school activities can be daunting.

Turning on the television to keep boredom at bay may be all too tempting.

But the Clark County Parks & Recreation Department has an answer, a veritable park on wheels.

When a brightly colored Parks and Recreation van, or RecMobile, pulls into one of these urban neighborhoods, instantly there are more constructive and interactive alternatives for children.

The RecMobiles contain arts and crafts, games, sports, guest speakers, field trips, a mobile library and even a rubber chicken.

The four vans -- nicknamed Ace, Deuce, Tre' and Quad -- are portable recreation centers. They provide activities to children considered at risk due to the transient and low socio-economic nature of their neighborhoods.

The RecMobile program is a means for Clark County Parks and Recreation to expand and improve recreation services throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

"There is definitely a need for this program now," Lee Ann Human, cultural specialist with the Clark County Parks and Recreation Department, said. "Maybe when the city catches up to its growth in terms of building parks, the need for our service will not be so dire."

The vans will start to roll on their fall rounds on Tuesday.

In addition to the 12 low-income neighborhood apartment complexes that the RecMobiles visit between 4 and 6 p.m., elementary schools in the Clark County School District will get RecMobile stops during lunchtime recesses.

"This service is for all children in Clark County," Human said. "But especially those in areas that otherwise would have limited recreation services and facilities available."

The locations primarily targeted by the RecMobile service are the 89109 ZIP code near the Boulevard mall, and the 89102 ZIP code, around Clark High School.

The first RecMobile, Ace, was introduced in 1993.

The most recent van, Quad, which joined the fleet in 1997, is equipped to transport up to 15 children on field trips to urban community centers in the Las Vegas Valley.

The RecMobile team consists of three full-time employees and 20 part-time recreation leaders.

"Some people on the RecMobile team are recreation or child-development majors at UNLV," Human said. "But no one is here for the money that they can make. They do it to give something really vital to the community."