Welcome 2022!

The Parks and Recreation team is looking forward to 2022. We are working on summer planning, preparing our parks, and programming activities and services for the community.

Here’s a glimpse of what the Department was working on in the month of January.

Aging Adult Services Highlights

The ever popular “Young at Heart Class” started. This class is taught by our own Carol Cohen. The class is held on Tuesdays at 10:00a. It is a 30-minute class that includes gentle mobility, stretching, strengthening, and balance exercises. The classes have been drawing an average of 5-10 participants per class. Max class size, based on the Center’s COVID plan, is 20 participants.

The Sandy Senior Center continues to support Meals on Wheels services. The Center staff is committed to delivering Meals on Wheels to our valued community members on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on those days our dedicated volunteers deliver enough meals for 7 days. The Senior Center has experienced a shortage of drivers due to COVID. However, the staff has stepped up and delivered meals as needed. Go team!

As we continue to navigate COVID the Senior Center continues to offer a litany of services. Such as financial assistance education and referrals, care giving referrals, housing / rental. assistance and application assistance, energy assistance, mental health referrals, immigration information and other needs for legal services, translation, case management and reassurance calls, and food referrals. Staff also conducts home visits.

The Center continues to offer COVID vaccination clinics every Friday in partnership with Clackamas County Public Health.

The Senior/Community Center staff was thrilled to open its doors, but unfortunately, we experienced a sewer line issue which caused us to temporarily close. Public Works is working hard on fixing the issue and we anticipate being back up and running shortly (See below pictures). The Recreation / Senior Center team is still working on hard on planning programs, events, and services for the spring and summer. Once the Center’s sewer line is fixed, the facility once again, will be open to the public. Hours are Mondays from 10:00a – 12:30p, and Thursdays from 1:00p-3:00p. These hours will be expanded as we bring in additional staff.

Recreation and Special Event Highlights

The recreation team is busy planning summer camps, classes, and events. Their goal is to recruit contractors for new and returning programs, and classes. Additionally, they are busy formalizing the Department’s volunteer program to increase volunteer recruitment, training, and retention.

Kinder classes returned to the Center. The classes sold out in a few hours representing the excitement by the community to participate in Parks and Recreation events and programs.

Staff is also working on spring and summer marketing campaigns and updating the seasonal guide. Look for a full list of summer special events in the Feb. 2022 report!

Parks and Maintenance Highlights: 

The Park’s team continues to work hard making our parks safe and clean!

They continued their storm cleanup efforts, continued to manage facility maintenance projects, addressed safety hazards at Fantasy Forest, removed leaves at Tupper Park, and edged memorial pavers at Sandy Bluff.

The Department is proud to announce that Tiana Rundell, Parks Maintenance Worker, was accepted into a Leadership Academica offered by the Oregon Recreation Parks Association, in partnership with Portland State University. This is a 6-month training program. Tiana will be paired with a mentor, complete a capstone project, and learn about trends and the skills necessary to become a future leader in the field of parks and recreation!

We continue to explore options to address drainage issues at Meinig Park parking lot.  Anytime there is heavy rain the parking lot floods.  The Park’s team was able to demo a pressure washer/vacuum truck that acts as a pressure washer releasing the packed vegetation from the pervious asphalt as it vacuums the debris into a holding tank. The results were remarkable! Our goal is to rent this equipment to restore the pervious asphalt parking lot at Meinig Park.    

Important to note, the Gazebo and bathrooms at Meinig are closed for the season.

The Park’s team is implementing an asset management, and work order software. This software will not only increase work efficiency, this is an exciting internal feature will improve documentation, communications, help set priorities, and identify and maintain parks assets.  

Upcoming meetings:

Interested in Sandy’s Parks and Trails. Please feel free to watch the Parks and Trails Advisory Board (PTAB) meetings or share a public comment.

PTAB meeting date/time: Feb. 9, 2022 @ 7:00 PM. Meeting is currently held virtually. For more information to watch the meeting live check click here.

What to Look Forward To:

As the Senior / Community Center works towards getting back to pre-COVID staffing levels we can add back services and programs. Also, stay tuned for additional job postings. The Park’s division will be hiring for a Seasonal Parks Worker.

We are hiring! If you or anyone else is interested, please follow this link for more details!

More to come in our Feb. 2022 monthly report!