Welcome to summer, when the sun shines the brightest on the City of Tampa, and the spotlight falls squarely on its Parks & Recreation Department.<\/p>\n
Parks & Recreation will host more than 7,000 kids in various summer camps between now and August 8, and employ 400-plus seasonal hires to get that done. And the increasingly popular Stay & Play teen program had total attendance of more than 13,000 last summer.<\/p>\n
“Summer is the best time of year in Parks & Recreation,” Mayor Jane Castor said. “Our camps are full of kids day and night, and they are laughing, playing, and growing – and getting better at sports, dance, gymnastics, swimming, theatre and so much more.”<\/p>\n
The increase in campers and activities also means an increase in staff needed to run the programs.<\/p>\n
“The employment opportunities available in the summer are staggering – more than 400 get to earn a paycheck and start a career,” City Councilwoman Naya Young said. “Many of these seasonal employees enjoy their jobs so much that they return in following summers, or move on to full-time jobs with the City of Tampa.”<\/p>\n
One such returnee is Russell Cole, who is in his third summer as a seasonal employee. His job as a Recreation Leader this summer at Riverfront Recreation Center will fulfill his internship requirements at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n
Parks & Recreation also offers specialty camps in various sports. Spots remain in eight specialty sports camps, including basketball, flag football, and multi-sports camp, as well as girls-only flag football and basketball. Parents can visit tampa.gov\/summer-camp<\/a> to register, and call (813) 274-5132 to get information.<\/p>\n Parks & Recreation also offers Stay & Play – a free program for teenagers every night of the summer. This year, Stay & Play will be operating seven nights a week from 6-11 pm at nine sites across the City.<\/p>\n Amahj Malphus, 16, has particiapted in Stay & Play for two years, playing basketball and kickball. He has become a seasonal employee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to summer, when the sun shines the brightest on the City of Tampa, and the spotlight falls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-293030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}