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Recreation
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City of Roswell
P.O. Drawer 1838
Roswell, NM 88202-1838
(505) 624-6700
Fax: 624-6889 |
THE LEISURE INCIDENT
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
"The Importance of Educating the Public"
April 15, 2026
By Kim Elliott, CLP
Recreation Director
City of Roswell
The Joint Economic Development Committee of Congress in 1994 reported that, "a
city's quality of life is more important than purely business factors when it comes to
attracting new business."
Quotes like the one above are difficult for the economist to disregard. But they do!
Why?
Local Parks and Recreation Departments have a responsibility to the community. Many
times the community does not realize how beneficial leisure activities and a healthy
lifestyle are for a community. This boils down to the local department educating the local
community. This is an important responsibility.
As a profession, we have not seemed to take this responsibility seriously. This affects
how we operate. This affects the community's attitude toward the profession. This affects
our attitude toward the community. This affects the funding we receive for continued
leisure services. This affects how we feel about our own jobs.
A community leisure education program has the potential to bring a community together
in wholesome activities, promote the family, build character and self esteem for
individuals and promote healthy lifestyles. These are all things that we as a profession
desire, but, maybe we have been going about it in the wrong manner.
We have always tried to promote the above in our activities and programs. It may be a
safe assumption that most of our users do appreciate us. Our goal then should be to
increase the number of satisfied users in our community. This begins by educating our
communities to the benefits of leisure activities.
Many times it is difficult to "teach an old dog new tricks" as an old proverb
says. Maybe we need to start the education process when they are much younger
"pups"! Our society says that it is necessary to begin educating ourselves at
the age of 4 or 5 and send our children to pre-school or kindergarten and continue this
educational process through high school and college.
As a leisure service profession we have dropped the ball when it comes to educating for
leisure. We try to do it when we have them enrolled in a program in one of our facilities.
We don't seem to recognize the fact that, many times, a very large portion of our
community may not be regular users of our programs. We may only see them during a sport
league, activity class or when participating in a passive leisure activity.
Our opportunities for leisure education are many times slim or even non-existent, if,
we wait for them to come to us!
Those programs that encourage regular participation do provide us with opportunities to
educate. But, do we? Community recreation centers are islands in the community that give
us the opportunity to educate. However, we are many times too busy keeping our numbers up
to worry about the educational process.
It would seem then that an effort needs to be made to educate the community to the
benefits of leisure services in a community. Where do we start?
We should start at the same place and level the rest of the community does. They start
in school! Why should we not take advantage of this same process? The system is already in
place.
This is not, nor will it be, an overnight process! The change will come, but it will
take determination and commitment. As we educate the young, they will grow up educated. It
is as simple as that!
Another old proverb says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is
old, he will not depart from it!" The concept applies to our profession as well. We
are just not doing the training.
Progressive cities know and understand the importance of leisure services to their
local economy.
If we do our job, we will have developed an entire new population who has grown up
appreciating what leisure can do for them. When this is done, leisure will be placed in
its rightful place as a foundation block for a healthy, growing community.
Parks and Recreation - The Benefits are Endless...TM
