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Santa Ana Recreation reports higher participation, in‑house lifeguard training and new programs
Summary
Recreation staff reported expanded athletics and youth programming, internal lifeguard instructor training that lowered certification costs to $55 per person, new grant awards and sponsorships, and upcoming events including a tech festival at Centennial Park and a summer movies series.
Recreation division staff told the Youth Commission about recent and upcoming programming, participant counts, training initiatives and sponsorships.
Staff said the boys’ basketball season began in December with roughly 460 participants and that the city is introducing girls’ volleyball programming. Permit and reservation activity for parks and facilities included over 1,000 building permits and 21 picnic reservations in Dec–Jan. The presenter said the department ran an internal lifeguard instructor training for 10–12 staff over several days to increase in‑house training capacity; doing the certification internally reduced the typical $350 outside cost to about $55 per person.
The department also reported applying for grants with partners (American Red Cross, USA Swimming Foundation) and receiving a recent grant that supplied 25 life jackets for aquatic programs. Staff highlighted a winter–spring 2026 recreation catalog, growing social media engagement (about 10,005 followers), and sponsorships secured for the tech/new‑year festival (Fast Auto and Robinson Pharma at $10,000 each, per staff). The tech festival is scheduled for April 11 at Centennial Park and the summer movies‑in‑the‑park series will return across multiple parks.
Recreation staff gave participation figures for other programs (about 296 participants for contract instructor programs during Nov–Dec, 120 for health and wellness activities, 660 across community gardens for Nov–Jan) and described mobile recreation outreach that engaged about 55 residents.
A commissioner asked about balancing sports offerings; staff said scheduling will allow boys’ basketball, girls’ volleyball and future boys’ volleyball so there are options for different participants. The recreation update ran from SEG 663 through SEG 957.
Direct quotes in this article are attributed to recreation staff presenters and reflect the on‑record update to the commission.
