Kate Thomas is the director for Wrangell’s Parks and Recreation Department. She caem to KSTK April 17, 2018 to talk about the revitalization project at City Park.

Talk on the Rock is KSTK’s live call-in show. Every Tuesday at 1pm we welcome a local guest to discuss events and topics of interest to our little island town. For today’s episode, host June Leffler spoke with Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas about the upcoming Helping Our Parks project. This year’s project will revitalize City Park, with the help of volunteers and fundraising. Everyone is encouraged to help out at City Park Saturday April 21, starting at 9:30. Thomas also spoke about the community, health and economic benefits of maintaining our Parks and Recreation Department. Here grandpa gave her a quick shout out on air, and gave us a little insight as to why Kate is so engaged in her role.

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Wrangell Parks and Recreation is hosting a fitness challenge to jumpstart a new year with new, healthy habits.  The program started three years ago, and the department has made some changes. It shortened the program from 13 to eight weeks.

“It’s going to be a bit faster and keep more people consistent, because it’s a shorter period of time,” says director Kate Thomas. “It is long enough to create a habit. Working out you probably need a full year to really drive it in, but 8 weeks is a good start.”

The program encourages exercise in a number of ways. Participants log every workout they complete, and Parks and Rec tracks the progress on individuals’ charts. Participants earn points that way. This gives folks accountability and recognition outside of their own personal bubbles.

“It’s pride-based incentive,” says Thomas. “We all got stickers on our homework or check pluses or stars when we did well. We like that.”

Plus, participants win prizes. They earn raffle tickets for gift certificates from the local coffee shop or produce store. The person who logs the most workouts wins a yearlong membership to the recreation center. That pass is worth over $300.

The department compiled a variety of exercise routines. When someone comes to the rec center, they can simply pick up an instruction card that explains a workout. And staff are there to explain anything.

Thomas said the preplanned workouts take the guesswork out of the picture, which is its own draw.

“When you come into the gym you can kind of waste a lot of time just ‘what do I do, where do I go, I don’t even know what I’m doing.’And this workout makes it easy for you,” she says.

These workouts are geared towards beginner, intermediate or advanced levels, and they progress throughout the challenge. These look like swimming a certain amount of yards, or getting on the Stairmaster for so many minutes at a certain intensity.

” You didn’t have to think about it except for setting your alarm, getting in your car, and driving to our facility,” says Thomas.

No weight-loss benchmarks are built into the program. The goal is simply to get people moving.

Thomas says the program strives to be inclusive of all forms of exercise. Participants can log their hike or bike ride, not just workouts done at the rec center.

“Not everybody wants to get on a treadmill. Some people hate it. So if you’re trying to force someone to do something they hate, they’re certainly not going to create a habit out of it,” she says.

Participants just need to take a selfie of them working out to earn points. The department is also partnering with Wrangell Fitness and the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, whom also provide fitness and health activities in town.

Adults and kids can contact the Parks and Rec department to sign up for the challenge. It starts January 1^st.

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Kids at a library pool party test out the inflatable Nessy. (KSTK)

Wrangell’s Parks and Recreation is struggling to recruit part-time employees, particularly lifeguards. At a recent public hearing, Park’s and Recreation Director Kate Thomas presented her findings on the program’s revenues, goals and challenges. She focused on the aquatics department, which brings in more than half of the departments revenues.

Thomas said the pool is in dire need of more lifeguards to maintain open swims and aquatic classes. Right now, there are four lifeguards. Thomas said there should be 10, and that full-time staff are filling in.

“In order to maintain positive momentum in programming and gain some traction, we need to gain more staff capacity,” Thomas said. “It does not necessarily mean it has to be in the form of permanent full-time staff members, but at least some lifeguards for the short term.”

Thomas said low wages are partially responsible for the lack of lifeguards. They start at minimum wage, $9.80 an hour. Thomas found neighboring communities pay $10.50 to $12.60 an hour to new lifeguards. She said the scheduled hours are inconsistent and the job attracts young adults who have other academic or extracurricular activities.

Thomas would like to raise wages for lifeguards down the road. This would require budget amendments and taking monies from the pool reserve fund or borough general fund. The department’s current budget allocates $70,000 a year for lifeguards and other casual labor.

It recently adopted a progressive pay scale to retain more employees.

“[It] basically says when you work this number of hours you get this amount of money, if you gain this certification you also get a pay increase,” Thomas said. “And so it basically sets a standard so it’s fair for all of the employees, but they also have some incentive to take the head guard training, to gain the swim instructor certification, to work more hours.”

The department’s board also approved changes to the pool’s schedule, such as cutting Friday night hours and increasing Monday and Wednesday hours. These changes should occur by the beginning of next year.

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