Fishing Grant is a Reel Deal for Waller Mill

By Desiree Parker Thursday, August 26, 2010

If you’ve ever been to Waller Mill Park in Williamsburg, you’ve likely seen folks out on boats or on the fishing dock with rod and reel, aiming to get “the big one” and the glory that goes with it – or just enjoying a little time communing with nature and catching what they can.

Thanks to a small grant from two national associations, the park can continue to reach out to local kids and inspire them with that same love of fishing.

“We want to create a lifetime of anglers,” says Waller Mill Park Manager Shelly Coulter.

The National Recreation and Park Association and the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation just distributed 70 grants of up to $5,000 each to park and recreation agencies and youth service associations across the country, including Williamsburg. The grants are part of their “Take Me Fishing” initiative targeting young people ages six to 15, to engage them in recreational boating and fishing.

The city parks and recreation department received $5,000 of grant money through the program last year, and got $4,000 this year to continue and expand their youth fishing program.

Coulter, who is in charge of the fishing program, says last year the money was used to do some outreach classes with two local elementary schools, Clara Byrd Baker and Rawls Byrd. The city staff did life jacket safety classes with the younger kids, which ended up being lots of fun.

“We did a life jacket fashion show with them that was silly and fun, but educational,” she recalls. The young kids got to model various life jackets, many with unsafe features that the other kids in the audience got to identify.

For the older students, park staff organized introductory fishing classes that included casting and swimming. All the students learned about water safety and the environmental aspect of fishing.

Casting was a lot of fun for the students, says Coulter. She had buckets set up for the participants to cast into, and “the kids seemed to love it.” One class had such a great time, each student sent park staff a thank you card. One special needs student liked casting so much, Coulter let him keep the fishing rod.

The classes “really seemed to resonate with the special needs kids,” she says.

After getting equipment and starting the fishing program, this year’s money will go towards starting a fishing club, which staff is working on planning right now. They also want to bring their outreach classes to other schools in the area.

“The Take Me Fishing initiative makes it possible for agencies to connect tens of thousands of children each year to boating and fishing opportunities, generating powerful bonds to nature and the outdoors,” says NRPA CEO Barbara Tulipane. “Programs like this one are crucial as we strive to create future generations of active, healthy Americans who will take care of the environment long after we are gone.”

Since 2006, the program has reached more than 350,000 children and families.  For the 2010 program year, NRPA awarded a total of $297,000 in grants to new and returning agencies, which will reach more than 140,000 additional children and families and increase program participation by more than 20 percent from 2009.

In addition to the financial award, grant winners also got an Operation TLC2 Making Communities Safe volunteer management and national background screening tool kit, access to online educational opportunities through NRPA, the Take Me Fishing Event Planning Kit, and access to industry experts via “ask the expert” on TakeMeFishing.org’s social networking site.