The Howard County Department of Police's third annual Community Athletic Program began last week, but a kick-off party was hosted at Talbott Springs Pool in Oakland Mills on Monday, July 11 to celebrate a new partnership and new facet of the traveling recreation center for youths.
"This year is a little special," said Deputy Chief Maj. Gary Gardner at the event.
While the police department has partnered with the Columbia Association on several initiatives in the past, he explained, this is the first year the two organizations have worked together on CAP. CA is allowing participants free access to its pool in Talbott Springs for the program's duration.
"We've been looking at different things in the community, and the need to expand what we do and how we do it," said CA President Phil Nelson. "It was an opportunity, also, to show kids that police officers are there to help them, rather than just enforce laws, because Howard County is very fortunate to have a very aggressive police force and a very aggressive police chief."
The program is aimed at providing a positive opportunity for middle- and high-school students to engage with police officers in locations where crime tends to increase in the summer months. The key feature of the program is a mobile trailer filled with sports gear, games and video game equipment, staffed by school resource officers and other officers in the department's Youth Division.
The program, which began July 5, runs weekdays until August 19, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a break July 25 – 29. Each day of the week, the mobile program travels to a different community, then returns to the community the same day of the week in subsequent weeks.
On Mondays, the trailer visits Talbott Springs Pool, and on Tuesdays, the Ridgely Run Community Center. On Wednesdays, the program visits the North Laurel Community Center, and on Thursdays, the Harper's Choice Village Center. Each Friday, the trailer goes to the East Columbia Library.
For more information, go to http://www.hcpd.org or call 410-313-2620.