Colonels ink 2 in Signing Day catch
April 20, 2016
Gabriel Richard
April 20, 2016
Mia Martinez has noticed an issue with young ones sharing aquatic space at her summer job.
Martinez, a teacher during the year, has been the pool manager at the Bayou Black Community Center for “about the last 10 years.” The Bayou Black pool is often packed with youngsters on busy summer days, particularly at the shallow end where toddlers who cannot swim congregate.
“When you have a large group of kids, you’re assuming, or would like to assume and hope, that the older ones and bigger ones can swim and go in the middle and the deep end,” Martinez said. “And that’s not always the case. So, they end up in the shallow end, and it’s overcrowding in the shallow end for those that cannot
[swim].”
Martinez and her staff got some long-term relief from the issue this weekend, as Bayou Black held the grand opening of its brand-new spray park, the first of its kind in Terrebonne Parish. She sees the new addition as a boon to both families with toddlers and her own staff, who would be “on guard” whenever the tiniest tykes hit the pool. The spray park gives those families a safer way to enjoy the summer weather, according to Martinez.
“The pool is three feet at the shallowest point, but it doesn’t cater to our toddlers and our children that can’t quite touch [bottom] yet still want to enjoy the cool water during the summertime. It’s going to be a huge benefit for those families that have younger children,” Martinez said.
The park’s opening is credited to the Bayou Black staff for looking outside the parish for inspiration.
The center’s director, John Hasten, said past summer camp field trips included visits to the Bayou Vista Community Center in Morgan City, which, until now, operated the nearest spray park. The campers loved it, assistant manager Melissa Hebert said, and she pushed Hasten to propose the concept to the Terrebonne Parish Recreation District 9 board.
Hasten brushed off Hebert’s suggestion at first; he was skeptical of the plan ever meeting the board’s approval. But the community center usually budgets for one large project per year, according to District 9 Chairwoman Janelle Bonvillain.
According to Bonvillain, the spray park was a “very big, relatively expensive” project for the district. Hasten, after more insistence from Hebert, brought the spray park idea to the board, and the board honored his skepticism by voting it down. Spending $280,000 on a spray park was simply too much.
Hasten shopped the project to get the spray park to a more palatable cost of about $215,000. The board approved the plan in September, and shovels hit the dirt this January. Bonvillain said Rec. District 9 had some money left over from last year that it was able to put toward the spray park’s construction, noting that fiscal planning is critical to the operation.
“This is how we go about doing things. We have to budget very carefully to get the things in that we want to,” Bonvillain said.
According to Hasten, the park will be open on the weekends until May 30.
After that, it will open daily from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. until Aug. 10. The park will then revert to weekend-only status until the first week of October, when it shuts down until the spring. Guests can pay one-time entrance fees, get a seasonal membership or reserve the park for private parties. Hasten said the spray park has a maximum capacity of 88.
Jacob Gold (left) and Ethan Acevedo explore the new spray park at Bayou Black Community Center. The addition gives those who cannot swim a safer way to cool off in the water.
