Daly City recreation staff review busy summer camps, outline youth programs and volunteer leadership training

Daly City recreation staff on Sept. 24 reviewed this summers enrichment and athletic camps, described the Volunteer Leadership Program that helps teens transition into part-time city jobs, and outlined plans to promote a community volleyball league in 2025.

Leslie DuBridge, who oversees enrichment programming, said the department ran roughly 15 enrichment camps this summer alongside 32 contracted classes. "If you know someone that's interested in teaching a camp or class through Daly City, please have them reach out to me," DuBridge said. She listed popular offerings including musical-theater, anime/manga and mixed-media arts camps. DuBridge said regular contracted-class enrollment varied; the largest contracted class had 36 participants (Karate Do Hoikoikai), while the largest enrichment camps reached about 20 campers and the smallest enrolled about five.

DuBridge identified camp locations including Westlake, the Merced Room/Larkin Clubhouse, Hillside Park Clubhouse and War Memorial. She noted Mad Science of the Bay Area is an expensive vendor option, charging about $450 a week for a half-day camp. DuBridge said the department is seeking lower-cost STEM contractors to broaden access and typically requires a minimum enrollment of six students to run a class.

On athletics, Jeanette Ganais said sports camps were "booming," reporting an all-sports half-day camp of 34 participants and a two-week volleyball program at War Memorial that had 121 participants: "Volleyball was big," she said. Soccer and basketball offerings also saw growth; Jeanette said soccer led by contractor Kevin Broomfield ran three weeks with 56 total participants in that presentation. Jeanette said the department is planning volleyball clinics and is "planning on having a volleyball league in 2025" to build sustained participation.

David Zetzer summarized the Summer Youth Recreation Program (SYRP) and the Volunteer Leadership Program (VLP). He said SYRP ran seven weeks from June 17 through Aug. 2 with themed weeks, on-site activities and field trips, and offered programs at Gellert Park, Westlake Park and Marchbank Clubhouse. Zetzer noted the VLP provides weekly training (first aid basics, leadership skills) and has historically peaked at about 150 teen participants before being scaled back; he said the program is intended to teach work skills and feed the citys part-time hiring pipeline.

Some numeric attendance figures in Zetzer's slide narration are not clearly legible in the transcript; he named Marchbank as having 88 campers but the transcript's numeric entries for Gellert and Westlake appear in an unclear format and are reported verbatim in the meeting record. Staff said they will present a more detailed VLP update at a future meeting.

Staff also previewed fall programming and one Thanksgiving-week mixed-media camp for ages 6—12 and thanked contracted instructors and facilities staff for supporting camps across multiple locations. The report closed with a short list of planned community events tied to recreation programming.

The commission did not take policy action on these program reports; the director's report was informational and staff will return with program updates as needed.