
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 25, 1994                   TAG: 9407250038
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOMETHING FOR THE KIDS TO DO

NUTTIN' TO do. Kids have whined of this awful summertime fate since Hector was a pup. So it follows, naturally, that they must assuage their boredom by staring at the television set for the better part of every day.

Well, it keeps them off the streets and out of mischief, shrug parents. Many parents, of course, have other things to tend to besides their children's entertainment - like jobs that pay for the TV set and cable access to MTV.

But possibly the kids haven't noticed, and their parents have forgotten, that there are public parks. These are sort of green places, to be found in nearly every Roanoke Valley neighborhood - in Salem, Roanoke County and the city of Roanoke - or just a short bike ride or walk away. (Walk? Remember that? It's something people in nonindustrialized nations still frequently do.) Residents of the more rural areas of our region may not have parks nearby, but they have, well, rural areas.

And fancy this: Some of these parks in the valley have playgrounds, ballfields, basketball courts, swimming pools, recreation centers. And, not to trouble young folks to organize their own activities, the local governments in many cases have done it for them. They provide an interesting variety of well-supervised programs, many at no charge to kids or their parents, to pass away a sultry summer day.

The city of Roanoke, for example, deserves commendation for stepping up its parks-and-recreation efforts for youngsters in response to an obvious need identified in recent years.

Not only did grown-ups' studies - such as one on adolescent health issues, conducted by the Council of Community Services and the Junior League of Roanoke Valley in 1990 - cite a shortage of recreational activities for young people. So, too, did youngsters themselves, in a series of "youth summits" sponsored by the city a few years back, following a spurt of vandalism and street crimes in some neighborhoods.

The kids said kids were into juvenile delinquency because there was little else for them to do in Roanoke - a questionable proposition, but worth responding to in any case.

Today, the city offers in eight parks daily summer-camp programs, featuring arts, crafts and sports, for youngsters aged 6 to 12. It has "Stars Come Out at Night" programs for teens, each weeknight in six parks. With the Roanoke Valley YMCA, it sponsors midnight basketball, modeled after similar late-night programs in larger metropolitan areas. It has alcohol-and-drug-free swimming-pool parties, job-training camps, and continues outdoors the much-praised D.A.R.E program, presented in public schools by city police for youngsters from at-risk neighborhoods.

If, for the nuttin'-to-do crowd, none of these appeal, there's another option that millions have discovered as a great means of chasing away the summertime blahs: Visit a public library. Read a good book.

by CNB