By Kaileah Poole
11th grade student at the Lopez School
Sports are a key part of what binds people together. Students make some of their most treasured memories playing sports: on bus rides, during games, matches, or meets, and practice. Sports encourage students to keep up their grades and strive to be better students to do something they love. And every sport needs funding! That’s where the proposed Lopez Rec comes in. This program is one that San Juan Island has used to help improve its sports equipment, facilities and travel costs. Lopez’s own Parks and Rec will be on the November ballot, and we are excited to create this amazing program to support Lopez Island School District sports!
Seniors Rowdy Spreine and Selene Rodriguez have spearheaded this program along with the LISD superintendent and other community members. The Lobo PACK is doing an incredible job at bringing in funds for school sports programs, but a Parks and Rec would be more consistent and sustainable funding.
Athletic programs are normally the first to get cut when a school district is short on money. Spreine explained, “LISD has a budget crisis, and athletics would not be able to continue unless a Parks and Rec supports it, like on San Juan. It would create after-school events and summer workshops … [It] would support all these programs … [and] not rely on the many grants running them right now.” Rodriguez discussed how specifically a Parks and Rec would help LISD, with bringing in money for transportation, new uniforms, field maintenance, paying referees and more.
So how can you help, both as a student-athlete and a community member?
“The biggest thing that anyone could do is just to spread the word and tell people about it. Letting people know that a Parks and Rec would allow us (the students) to continue playing sports and that it would be a huge benefit to the community now that the Family Resource Center has a few grants ending that were paying for the community events we have right now,” said Spreine. The federal grants that fund the after-school program and summer programs provided by the Lopez Island Family Resource Center end in 2027 so in addition to supporting school sports, Lopez Rec would also support these essential services provided by the LIFRC. The Lopez Rec vision also includes programming for all island residents, including community baseball, sailing lessons, programming with partners like the Lopez Museum and Lopez Fit and much more.
Email info@rallyfortherec.org to join the volunteer team to make Lopez Rec a reality!
