City gives DPS kids rec passes

28,000 students reap one-year memberships

Daniel J. Chacon

Published January 15, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Denver is giving away nearly $1 million in recreation center memberships to as many as 28,000 Denver Public Schools students.

The one-year memberships are part of an effort to engage Denver's youth and eliminate money as a barrier to the city's 29 rec centers and the programs they offer.

All kids at 60 selected elementary and middle schools with 75 percent or more of their students receiving free or reduced lunch will be eligible for memberships.

City Councilman Doug Linkhart said many of those kids already qualify for an existing scholarship program to use the rec centers.

But "they haven't been coming in because the parents are sometimes unwilling to come in or worried about coming in and doing a lot of paperwork," he said. "I just think it's great that we can skip all of that."

City Councilwoman Judy Montero said the giveaway stemmed from suggestions made at community meetings held after the city considered closing some underused rec centers.

In coming days, students will get a letter in English and Spanish to take home that explains the program, dubbed My Place. They also will get a certificate to redeem their membership and a waiver that their parents or guardians must sign.

Parents or guardians are asked to take their child to an assigned rec center to redeem the certificate, but the membership will be good at any of the 29 rec centers.

"Not only is it free membership, but it's an automatic 50 percent off all of our programming," said Jill McGranahan, a spokeswoman for the Parks and Recreation Department.

City employees will be visiting schools not included in the new program to tell students about scholarship opportunities, she said.

Last year, Parks and Rec awarded nearly $160,000 in scholarships to more than 2,000 kids.

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