First year of Parks and Rec Youth Advisory Council a success

First year of Parks and Rec Youth Advisory Council a success

(May 25, 2023) -- The first year of the Sikeston Parks and Recreation Youth Advisory Council was a success, according to Dustin Care, director of Sikeston Parks and Recreation.

At a recent Sikeston Regional Chamber meeting, Care told those in attendance the hope of creating YAC was to reach teens.

“We often have a difficult time programing events and activities for kids in the 12-18 age range,” Care said, adding that with YAC, they were hoping to come up with events to reach that age group.

Coordinating with Sikeston High School, Sikeston Parks and Recreation was able to fill the first-ever Youth Advisory Council.

“Overall, it went very well,” Care said, adding they had a strong group of 5-10 members with 15-20 members in total.

The group recently put on their first event, a color run held at the Sikeston Recreation Complex in April, and it was a success by all accounts.

Christiana Staple, YAC event coordinator, said she enjoyed being a part of the group.

“It has enabled me to grow closer with my best friends, make new friends and allows us to work together to create things that are awesome for the community,” Staple said. “It is a great opportunity to make events that target my age group so that we can get the community more involved at every age.”

Being the first year, YAC couldn’t hold as many events as they would have liked, but Staple said she and the rest of the council are already looking forward to next year.

“One of the main things I look forward to next year as a member of the Youth Advisory Council, is our ability to create new events and be able to do multiple activities this coming year because we’ve already created and built a strong foundation,” Staple said.

Members of the Youth Advisory Council were: Anabeth Baker, Jax Lancaster, Anna Purves, Charlie Robison, Christiana Staple, Levi Douglass, Dakota Thompson, Hailey Caton, Colt Parker, Jack Evans, Chloe Booth, Cate Schrumpf, Heidi Self, Baylee Copeland, Ben Gilmore, Leo Huang and Cam Copeland.