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Date: 12/31/2021
BELCHERTOWN – Between seasonal athletics, activities for adults and larger scale events and projects, the Belchertown Recreation Department has something for everyone.
Linda Racicot, the department’s program manager, said the department offers a variety of sports and activities for children and adults alike.
“We offer basketball baseball, softball, soccer and we do have some private organizations in town that offer sports as well. We do offer adult programing, we have Jiu Jitsu, Tai Chi, yoga and pickleball. Pickleball is one of our most popular right now,” she said.
Alongside the seasonal staples, Racicot said the department offers other activities from time to time.
“We do offer sporadic programs including the safe sitter course and arts and crafts. We offer close to 50 different programs during the summertime, we have a big catalog,” she said. “We do have a few events as well; we just had a drive by lighting contest in town and we have an Easter egg hunt for the kids.”
One way the department adapted to COVID-19 was by hosting outdoor movie showings.
“Since COVID [-19] we have drive-in movies. We have done them at a few different places, we have the drive-in movies as well as outdoor sit-downs we have done at the beach. We have done our drive-in in the high school parking lot,” Racicot said.
Recreation Department Director Kyle Thibeault said the department is also in charge of the pool at Chestnut Hill School.
“We manage the pool here in town as well. We run some different programs for the pool including lap swims, family swims, swim lessons and swim team,” he said.
In terms of other aquatic activity offerings, Thibeault said the department also manages the town beach off of Route 9.
“The beach is very popular and a hidden gem, most people do not even realize we have a beach in town. It has been very good in years past especially with everything going on COVID [-19] wise, it is outdoors and there is enough space down there for the picnic tables and on the beach to utilize and cool off,” he said.
When putting programming together, Thibeault said the department works closely with other town organizations.
“We partner with different town organizations like Cultural Council to co-sponsor things, we used to do a lot more with the Senior Center prior to COVID [-19] trying to see what we could partner with or what we could do to provide something for some of that clientele as well,” he said.
One of the biggest ways people can support the department is through volunteering.
“Volunteering to coach is a big piece of the puzzle for most of our youth sports, it is a lot of volunteer coaching and time they put in and we have been fortunate to have quite a few people step up and coach for us as well,” Thibeault said.
While the department does not host its own fundraising events, Racicot said people have started fundraisers for different projects, including the disc golf course that is currently in the works.
“We are now creating a new disc golf course in town, and they have their own committee who does fundraising for the creation of the course. Our pickleball players have always pooled together and have had tournaments and different things to help fund-raise,” she said.
Thibeault said that project started with a Community Preservation grant.
“That was a CPC grant we got, and we have been working to try to facilitate the construction of it, going through the different avenues of design, conservation and things like that so we are scheduled to move forward and try to get approval for certain spots with the Conservation Commission coming up,” he said.
He explained the project’s next steps once it is approved by the Conservation Commission.
“From there it would just be volunteer groups and the designer to lay out what needs to be cleared for underbrush and some of the prickers and invasive species to clear walking paths throughout the space. It is still moving forward, just not as fast as we initially thought,” Thibeault said.
Thibeault said the project has been in the works for several years.
“We had a different location which ended up not working out so we switched gears to a different location, I would say we have been at this location for about two years but overall, about three years because of the different obstacles that have come up along the way,” he said.
If all goes well, the course should be ready at some point in 2022.
“I am hoping within the next year it will be up and running, we have all the baskets and the rough design of it, once we have approval things should pick up a bit in regard to the actual course itself, it comes down to how much underbrush needs to be removed. Some of it is weather dependent as well,” Thibeault said.