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STEUBENVILLE -- The Belleview Park Swimming Pool will be opening for the season when school is out, but that's just part of many efforts by the city recreation department to provide for sports, families, swimmers and exercisers for the spring and summer season.
Recreation Director Lori Fetherolf said an open house will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday to show off updates to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center on Market Street.
Fetherolf said the entire building has been painted. There are new LED lights that brighten the gym. New padding is to be installed on the gym walls, and the court floor will be re-done this summer.
Through the rest of the building, the floors have been stripped and waxed. There's a new air hockey table and a new television and new matting on the weight room floor.
Fetherolf said, "I want the workout room to be a place where I would work out."
She said Lowe's Home Improvement has been a partner with the recreation department, donating $2,500 worth of product, as well as volunteers to paint the building back in October.
"People in the community who have not been here for a long time will want to attend the open house. It is a night-and-day difference here. The update here was one of the first goals I had and we have done it as best as we could," said Fetherolf, who will wrap up her first year as recreation director in June.
The Belleview pool has needed community efforts to get it opened in recent years, but Fetherolf said it is ready to open with new features once the school year ends.
The features will be unique in the area: A climbing wall over the pool and an Aquazip, a sort of modernized rope swing over the pool, are being added. The new features are being covered by two grants, she said.
She said a retaining wall will be repaired by an outside contractor. The recreation department took advantage of the warm fall weather and painted the pool after the end of the last season, so the pool is ready to go.
"Once the weather breaks, we will be on top of trying to get it cleaned and going with a goal to get it open when the kids get out of the schools," she said.
The recreation board has re-set the daily and season pass rates to try to attract more users, especially families this year. Day rates have been adjusted to $3 across the board for anyone older than age 4. The senior day rate was eliminated. Senior season passes for anyone age 55 and up were lowered to $40 from the previous $50.
Child passes and adult passes were lowered to $50 for the season from $70 for children and $95 for adults. Family passes were lowered from $150 to $100 for up to five people per household. The rate to add more than five will be $20, but Fetherolf said she can work with families with extenuating circumstances.
Pool rentals were lowered to $125 for two hours covering two lifeguards, enough for 50 people to attend an event. For more than 50 people, rates will be higher to cover additional lifeguards.
"We're looking at adding some evening or weekend special events, teen swims and family swims. A night swim is fun if people come," she said.
Fetherolf plans to offer swimming lessons herself. She began her career in recreation as a lifeguard.
"Water safety is a huge concern of mine. Even though we have a 5-foot pool, if you're 4 feet tall, that's over your head, and we have the river here. So, it's a concern of mine. I want kids to know how to save themselves and how to be safe in and around the water," she said.
Beyond the pool, the recreation department is partnering with the YouthWorks mission program to offer sports camps for children ages 10-14 at Belleview Park for six weeks during the summer. Each week will cover a different sport and the participants will be able to swim at the pool every day and have lunch provided. YouthWorks will staff the events under the oversight and organization of the recreation department. Signups begin March 12.
A youth flag football program led by Jessie and Shannon Sturch has about 90 participants at the recreation center. Fetherolf said there is planning under way hopefully to establish a spring league to be held outdoors at one of the parks for kindergarten through third-grade participants.
She is in contact with the U.S. Tennis Association and is working with Shannon Irvin, assistant tennis coach at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and a coach at Catholic Central High School, to try to get more area youth involved in tennis. Fetherolf said the goal is to see more use of Belleview's tennis courts beyond the school team seasons.
She has a philosophy of establishing partnerships with people and groups in the community to arrange events at city parks. For example, an Easter egg hunt will be held March 24 at 10 a.m. at Belleview Park by First Westminster Presbyterian Church, which is supplying the volunteers, candy and materials for the hunt, while the parks department will organize and run the event. Fetherolf said holding the event at Belleview means better parking and the ability to arrange different areas of the park for different age groups, compared with hunts that were held in years past at the MLK Center.
She said she is actively seeking partners for events that could be held at city recreation facilities.
"We want to know who needs space, how can we serve them and what can we do to get people in here," she said.
A field maintenance class is being held at 8 a.m. Wednesday at Belleview for anyone who needs to prepare ballfields to use at city parks. She said the city spent thousands upgrading its fields and wants to be sure the fields are properly maintained, which means not simply dropping vast amounts of field drying agents on them after a rainstorm. Athletic Field Pros, which updated the city's fields, will conduct the course, which is open to everyone in Steubenville and surrounding communities. It is required for anyone planning to perform any field maintenance in city parks this year. The course is free.
"It is an opportunity for our staff and the community to learn how to take better care of the assets we have and determine when it's safe to play or not or determine if the field is too wet to dry off," she said.
For information about the course or any recreation program or event, contact Fetherolf at (740) 283-6000, extension 4002.
In addition, Fetherolf is establishing a Constant Contact e-mail list for people interested in city recreation department events and schedules and other information. To sign up, e-mail her at lfetherolf@cityofsteubenville.us or call her office.
(Giannamore may be reached at pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)