Parents and Coaches Form New Dade County Recreation Association

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Parents and coaches organized the newly formed Dade County Recreation Association because they saw a need for formalization and additional support of kids’ recreational sports.

One of the major developments that’s come from the association is a website which houses information about all of the sports. The website, www.daderec.com, explains, “The Dade County Recreation Association is dedicated to the children and adolescents of Dade County. We offer a website with up-to-date information regarding sign-ups, scheduling, and contact details.”

Brittany Dee, who serves as the board coordinator, reported, “I, along with some other parents from different sports, saw a need for rec sports to be a little more organized and offer the same opportunities for each sport. I was born and raised here and played sports here before, and now my kids play.”

Dee continued, “I wrote up some bylaws for what the association could look like and got together with the commissioners over each sport.”

Another early part of the process was a parent survey, which had about 85 responses. Dee also spoke with the county government to make sure all bases were covered. “They recommended that this would be a parent-led organization, and the county doesn’t have anything to do with recreation sports.”

The existing recreation sports are softball, baseball, basketball, football, cheer, soccer, and wrestling. Wrestling and football have not officially joined the association, but the website will still include information about those sports.

Dee noted, “Before, people didn’t always know where to go to find information. Some sports made signs and distributed flyers at the schools, but now we have one central place.”

The next step was to elect a board of trustees. In addition to Dee, the board is composed of James Fowler (president), Stewart Parris (vice president), Joshua Lewey (treasurer), and Jen Wilson (secretary).

The sports commissioners are also key leaders, with Chip Burrow leading baseball, Mark Morcombe leading basketball, Amanda Spradling leading cheer, Sarah Hickey leading soccer, and Faith Bearden leading softball.

Dee said, “We want to help the sports commissioners with all of their duties and responsibilities because they have such an overwhelming job. No one is paid, and it’s a lot of time and work.”

Dee explained that having a board can help with fundraising, saying, “We have a treasurer who will be on each sport’s account to have the total amount before and after each season. The treasurer will help with general fundraising, and we hope to have benevolence funds to offer scholarships. We had 12 respondents to the survey who said they couldn’t afford the fees for their children to play rec sports.”

Survey participants also said they hoped to see more tournaments in Dade County. Dee added, “One of the questions on the survey asked if they would support an indoor recreation center. This is something we could maybe write grants for. You can’t really write grants if you don’t have a board established.”

Currently, rec teams use the Dade County Sports Complex (The Four Fields), Jenkins Park, Dade Elementary School, and Davis Elementary School.

The association has also organized an equipment sale/swap and is implementing background checks on every coach, commissioner, and board member.