A Summer Of Fun At The Parks And Rec Department
Monday, August 18th, 2025
Schools are back in session in northwest Georgia which means one of the most successful summers in the history of the Dalton Parks and Recreation Department is in the books. From numerous summer camps for kids to summer sports leagues to the return of fun in the sun at the Rec Pool, Dalton's parks saw record attendance and participation this summer. But the DPRD's staff isn't getting a chance to rest, they're already hard at work getting ready for the fall and winter seasons. In addition to all of the offerings Dalton residents enjoy each year, the DPRD is also working to add new programs and classes that could become new favorites.
"Recreation is not just the bat and ball that we roll out. There are so many more avenues to it," said DPRD director Steve Roberts. "I think there are even some things we'll try to do to introduce people to maybe some new hobbies, maybe some new interests that they've never been exposed to. We're going to be looking for some outside of the box classes too."
Happy Campers
The Parks and Recreation Department packed a lot of fun and games into a series of summer camps for Dalton's kids this summer. They even managed to sneak in a little education without the kids noticing or seeming to mind. The department's camp offerings included a summer-long fun camp, an alternative camp for kids with special needs, week-long camps for sports, and perhaps most popular, a fishing camp.
Caption: Mario Soria shows off his catch of the day at the DPRD's Fishing Camp
The Summer Fun Camp at the Mack Gaston Community Center had 70 participants. The program ran for six weeks, but kids could sign up on a weekly basis to allow families to schedule vacations or family time without wasting money on camp tuition. The programming for the camp included the usual fun and games around the rec center, including time in the pool and on the splash pad. The camp also included enrichment from the community. Campers took part in STEM workshops with Georgia Power, a drama workshop with Dalton's Artistic Civic Theater to create a performance, as well as karate classes, and art classes. The campers also took field trips into the community including a tour of the Dalton Municipal Airport where they got to climb aboard a few airplanes and learn how they fly. The campers also built their own garden beds and learned to grow vegetables.
"They took part in building the bed, filling it with dirt, learning how to plant, learning how to harvest, and learning how to, you know, keep the weeds out," said Craig Cady, the DPRD's program manager. "The kids really loved it."
Camp Rising Sun and Camp Sunshine, the DPRD's summer camp offering for kids with special needs, took part in a lot of the same field trips and learning activities as the Summer Fun Camp. Britni Connell from the DPRD's therapeutic recreation program coordinated the camps.
"They go about the same amount of time and they do a lot of the same trips. They went out to the airport, they took part in the gardening and planting, and they had a carnival day," Cady said. "We got some carnival equipment and brought it (into the gym) with cotton candy and popcorn machines, and we put games in the gym. The kids had a really good time, and a lot of the times we would do some overlaps where we'd get some stuff like bouncy houses and we'd let both (the Summer Fun Camp and Camp Rising Sun and Sunshine) come in."
The Summer Sport Camp gave campers a chance to play different sports each day. DPRD staff served as coaches and referees for the action, teaching new skills and also organizing play. The DPRD also offered week-long camps for tennis and pickleball instruction. The fishing camp at Haig Mill Lake Park, however, proved to be in the highest demand.
"We partnered with Bass Pro Shops, and they supplied a fishing rod and a small tackle box (that campers got to keep)," Cady said. "We advertised the class and set registration to open at 12:01 am on July 1st. By the time I got to work that morning at 8:30, the camp had already filled up."
Cady said the department is already planning to double the size of the camp next summer to allow for more participants.
"It seemed extremely hot, but every kid caught at least one fish. To be honest, I think most kids caught multiple fish," Cady said. "The feeling when a kid's able to bring a fish in and the confidence it gives a kid to do something like that... and the kids are always, in this day and age, they have their phones out, and everything has to be immediate. So probably the one thing we taught them is sometimes you've got to get your hands dirty with the bait and patience is usually rewarded. And they started seeing that when you'd leave (the line) out there and you didn't run off to something else and you didn't have a distraction... you'd succeed.
Making A Splash
The John Davis Recreation Center's pool re-opened for the first time in two years this summer after being shut down for construction. The community responded in a big way, filling up open swim days with a lot of fun in the sun. More than 6,000 people hit the pool during the pool's abbreviated season, averaging 123 people per day.
The return of the pool also meant the return of swimming lessons, and of 390 total spots for new swimmers the DPRD filled 388.
Community Gardens Thrive
The new community gardens on Trammell Street and at Lakeshore Park have been great successes, and the cultivation has spread beyond the borders of the parks. Allison Mitchell, the DPRD's community garden specialist, has conducted monthly classes to teach residents how to better tend to their own gardens, as well as working with students at Westwood Elementary School, which is a neighbor of the Trammel Street Garden, to help grow plants on their campus as well.
"They're working on beautifying and enhancing their courtyard through outdoor learning. She works with every single grade at Westwood to teach them how to beautify their area," Cady said.
Caption: Garden beds at the Trammell Street Community Garden are blooming abundantly and many are bearing fruit. The garden opened for cultivation in May
The monthly gardening classes will expand to weekly classes on Saturdays in September as the harvest season gets closer. The outdoor classroom program at the community garden has led to the development of quite a few green thumbs.
"(The classes) talk about pollinator gardens. They'll focus on what are the local plants that are native to the area to educate people on what's natural in this area and what may or may not be an invasive species, and just kind of teaching people how to grow and harvest their own food," Cady said. "Allison is very knowledgeable and does a fantastic job,"
New Programs And Partnerships
The DPRD has created a new program this summer with the Dalton-Whitfield Public Library. On Saturdays this summer, the "Storyventures" program brought a storytime book reading to a Dalton park with games or crafts to enhance the lessons of the story.
"It's been very popular. We hosted at Civitan and Brookwood Park, and Lizzie Stuckey does a fantastic job of bringing the Dalton-Whitfield Library out into the community and utilizing our parks in the process," Cady said.
The DPRD has also worked with local homeschool organizations to create a number of enrichment classes that students can participate in. The classes are held mid-day when facilities are not in heavy use, and class topics have included fitness and wellness, art history, arts and crafts through phonics, bucket drumming, and even "recorder karate."
"I learned that's not karate with a recorder, but they use a recorder to learn the basic skills of the breathing techniques for karate," Cady said. "After COVID... there's more of a demand there (for homeschool programs) and we thought we could offer a program that could supply that demand."
Karate is also one of the DPRD's new programs, along with weekly Zumba classes. The DPRD has also partnered with BLOOM, a local non-profit organization established to support families of children with special needs in the Dalton community. The organization hosts play dates at Al Rollins Park, and also hosted a school resource expo at the Mack Gaston Community Center last month.
"It's really working with the families of the special needs community to let them know that, you know, we're all in this together," Cady said. "We're all part of the community."
Numbers On The Rise
The DPRD is looking forward to one of its busiest fall sports seasons ever. There are nearly 2,550 kids signed up to participate in football, drafted or team soccer, cheerleading, cross country, or volleyball in Dalton's leagues.
"To put that (number of participants) in perspective, (in 2017) that would be consistent with what we would do in a whole year. And we're doing that in the fall," said Steve Roberts. "I mean, we have 990 drafted soccer players. We have 770 team soccer players. So, we've got 1,700-,800 kids playing soccer. We've got another 300 playing football. We've got another 300 playing volleyball, which... I don't know of any volleyball program to hit that kind of number other than travel programs because we also have we have two volleyball sessions in the year. We do have a spring and fall program and (fall) is actually our smaller one at 300."
"Everything we've got is growing," Roberts continued. "We're on pace to serve probably in the neighborhood of 6,500 to 6,700 kids depending on how winter sports registrations are. The community that Dalton is now, we are serving very well."
