September 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 18

W E A R E P A R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N

Hot Topics
NRPA Connect is an online network with 65,000
professionals to answer your questions, share your
challenges and discuss trending topics in the ﬁeld.
Check out what is being discussed this month:
Special Event Ideas with Physical Distancing
in Mind - An NRPA Member has asked the community to share ideas on special events during the
COVID-19 pandemic to help keep their community
engaged and safe.
NRPA members oﬀered the following suggestions:
We are starting our outdoor movies with a limited capacity. We
will be moving it to our youth ballﬁeld [to] help us manage numbers,
so we don't get a huge crowd. While inside the ballﬁeld, we will have
family pods set up (chalk or cones) to create an area that can seat
around six people comfortably. Each " pod " will be at minimum [of] 10
feet from the next pod. Families are encouraged to wear face masks
while they are coming into the movie and exiting. They are able to
take oﬀ their face masks once they sit down at their pod.

Scavenger Hunt - Each week, we hide a " golden ticket " at one
of our 18 parks and take an up-close picture of the ticket to give as
a clue. Families who ﬁnd it need to take a picture of the ticket at the
park and upload it to the post. Once conﬁrmed, they stop by our
oﬃce to pick up the prize.

Member Beneﬁt:
Technology's Role in
Safer Recreation
By Kirsten Koppard-Telford

hen the pandemic hit, the first thing ePACT did
was equip child and youth organizers with resources to quickly, but safely, offer emergency childcare
to front-line workers. Soon after, we surveyed park and
recreation agencies to find out what was needed to reopen
facilities and launch new programs as restrictions lifted.

Managing Risks with Technology
to Provide Better Care
Working as a complement to registration systems,
ePACT was ready to take on the rapidly changing,
complex challenges organizations would face as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Replacing High-Touch Processes
to Minimize Community Spread
Nearly 60 percent of P&R agencies surveyed planned to
make administrative processes paperless to reduce the risk
of virus transmission. ePACT was designed to collect and
manage information without paper, which helps to reduce
this risk while alleviating administrative burdens and minimizing chances of missed or incorrect data.

Creating New Protocols to
Maintain Physical Distancing
Chalk the Lot - Families have all weekend to complete a parking space with chalk drawings. We alternated every other spot in a row
to help encourage social distancing. Once families completed, we had
them send in a picture of the drawing and social media followers voted.

We are oﬀering two events coming up in September and October. One is our " Fall Frolic, " where we set up learning/craft/activity
stations along one of our nature trails (about 2.5 miles) and allow
families to social distance as they go from station to station. We also
include a nature scavenger hunt for the kids and when they return to
the trailhead, they receive a treat/prize. The other one is a scarecrow
decorating contest. Families pay $15 to receive a scarecrow frame
(looks like a cross made out of 1X4s). Then, they can decorate their
scarecrow and display. The top three get prizes.
Log in to connect.nrpa.org today to share
ideas or chime into the discussion!

Parks & Recreation

| S E P T E M B E R 2 02 0 | PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G

Nearly 80 percent of agencies surveyed planned to create new drop-off and pick-up protocols to keep families
and staff responsibly apart. ePACT's contactless checkin/out functionality makes it possible to do this at a
distance while improving the ability to track, manage
and archive check-in and out activities.

Conducting and Storing Daily
Health Screenings Securely
The introduction of daily health screenings and the
need to store and quickly access data for reporting and
contact tracing has changed many agencies' processes.
ePACT worked closely with the industry to address this
gap by creating screening tools that integrate seamlessly into existing processes and applications.
Kirsten Koppard-Telford is Cofounder and Chief Executive
Oﬃcer of health and emergency response network ePACT.

September 2020 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2020 - Parks & Recreation