Interview: Alain Joinville

A while ago I participated in the Philly Spring Clean up, and while working at the Amos Recreation Center on 16th and Berks I told an intern with the Department of Recreation about my blog. He told me I needed to talk to Alain Joinville, the Public Affairs Coordinator for the Department of recreation, and thus I had my first interview for this blog. I originally submitted it to be posted on the Student Union 34 site, but since that is temporarily down, here it is:

Alain Joinville

Public Affairs Coordinator

Department of Recreation

Greg Trainor: First off, what was the Department of Recreations part in the Philly Clean Up?

Alain Joinville: Well we had 15 facilities participate in the mayor’s clean up. All over the city, from South Philly to Northeast Philly. We had three facilities in North Philly. Eighth and Diamond, it wasn’t a clean up. It was a bin distribution with the Mayor, a couple Eagles players, the streets department was involved. They used that site sort of as, a distribution site for recycling bins. Of course, Amos, the one you were at we did some painting, some clean up, and we are also at Athletic Recreation Center. Which is one of our biggest facilities. Two baseball fields, basketball gym, boxing gym, beautiful pool, and just a huge, grand building. 

So this is an opportunity to work in conjunction with the mayor to give some of our facilities some TLC. We have over 163 facilities, and 75 neighborhood parks. An example of a neighborhood park would be Clark Park. Not as big as the Fairmount Park sites, but some of them are pretty substantial, so its a lot of territory for our maintenance guys to cover, so any time we can get volunteers to help us out with some of these projects it helps a lot. We can cover more ground, and it doesn’t cost us that much. Because if we had to put all of our men there, with overtime, we wouldn’t be able to be as efficient. 

GT: Do you feel that they are being used? They’re appreciated? Are the kids getting out to them?

AJ: Yeah definitely. I think unfortunately, there’s an issue of crime in North Philadelphia, so the parents don’t really feel safe sending their kids out, unless its next door. So, we get kids, but not as many as we could. If crime wasn’t an issue, just in that area, I mean I’ve had folks... I live just in that Francisville area, and the parents just have the kids play on the block instead of going just a few blocks over because they feel safer, more secure.

GT: What types of problems or issues do these rec centers face?

AJ: Graffiti, we have a strong graffiti issue. On the same day as the clean up--graffiti and vandalism--I was walking by one of the sites that was part of the clean up, and there was like this group of like twenty guys doing BMX tricks on the just painted playground, so that just tore it up. I mean we had sixty or seventy volunteers there. It was paint that we had to pay for, the city had to pay for, it was labor, and you could tell it was just painted so it was just...being a jerk.

Crime is an issue at some of our facilities just because, crime is an issue in Philadelphia, so we’re not immune to that, and we’re in every neighborhood in the city. It usually happens after hours, when there isn’t staff there. Because we have big fields and open space that is not locked down, and actually, even if it was locked down, if you want to be mischievous you’re going to be mischievous. 

GT: Is funding an issue?

AJ: Just because... funding in the entire city is an issue, and the budget crisis. So its difficult to do some of the programs that we would like when moneys not coming into the city.

GT: Was the Philly Spring Clean Up successful?

AJ: Yes, very successful. The city provided us with rakes, brooms, paint, gloves, anything we needed to help spruce up the facilities. Of course, one day makes a difference, but it needs to be a sustained effort. That’s why its important that we have folks from that community be a part of it, so luckily I sort of live near that facility that I saw, so I told those guys to get out of there, but we need just regular city folk looking out for these facilities.

GT: How would one get involved with the Department of Recreation, either for work or for volunteering? Do you have volunteer events?

AJ: Yes we have, for the most part every facility has an advisory council, and they are a volunteer group of folks who live in the neighborhood. They do outreach for the rec center. They help raise funds. They come up with programming in coordination with the recreation department. But if you have a skill or talent, we have partnered with Villa, who has been a great partner, at Martin Luther King recreation center, at 22nd and Cecil B. Moore. They donated some money to that center for a teen center. Which is strictly teen programming, more focused on education, not so much sports. Which we have a lot of for teens, but more educational programs. SAT Prep, homework help, business competition. 

For the homework help, the tutors are college students who are doing it for free, some from Temple University. So it could be tutoring, it could be coaches, and we actually need more volunteer coaches. For Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South Philly. World class baseball program. We got kids you know, its busting with kids because its popular, which is a good problem you run into, but we don’t have enough coaches to give them quality oversight and teach them to play the game well. 

GT: In particular to Amos Rec Center where I worked on Saturday, is Temple University’s expansion, and the gentrification it causes, an issue to its future?

AJ: To Amos? No I haven’t heard of that. We would like to work more closely with Amos, there is Penn Rose Playground, I forget the address, but Temple University has been a great part of that over there. Helped with a couple clean ups of that facility. They’re helping us long term to be a partner at that facility, Penn Rose Playground. I believe the program is Temple Youth Voices, what they’ve done is, after the election, or during the Obama election, a lot of our facilities are polling places, and one of the largest amount of folks came out to vote ever at that facility. I guess the polls were open until nine or ten  o’clock, and I guess Temple Youth Voices wanted to capitalize on that energy in that neighborhood, so they’re teaching the neighborhood kids how to do video documentaries of the neighborhood. Find out why they were so happy to see Obama become elected. What is the change in the neighborhood. What do they think folks can do to improve the neighborhood. They started a teen health facility there to teach kids not only how to eat healthy, but how to exercise. How to have a healthy sexual relationship. So that has been a great partnership, and we’d like to duplicate that at Amos. 

GT: That’s good to hear. One last question. Temple Youth Voices sounds like a great program. I’ll definitely look into that. Is there anything else you would like to see from student at Temple University in regards to the rec centers? As in volunteer, fundraising, working...

AJ: I just think definitely helping with the tutoring. Helping with being coaches, maybe some student athletes. I don’t think, actually that you need to even be a formal student athlete, just that you played baseball in the past, and know some of the skills, know the game. Actually, if you’re teaching a five year old, you don’t necessarily have to know the game, just become more active and it doesn’t have to be a 20 hour commitment. It can be one hour a week, you know, you can choose it. How you volunteer at the facility, but I think this is great also, maybe about three weeks ago, the Temple Journalism school, I think it’s Mural or something?

GT: Oh yeah, MURL.

AJ: Yeah, MURL, they interviewed me, and a couple folks from the department. We need more folks to know what we do. I don’t think enough folks know what we do. I was a little irked, about a month ago, was talking to some friends about a community group I’m  a part of, and it was like, hey we can do it a rec center! Everybody’s nose went up. 

I mean our facilities are clean, there are some of them that have issues, but by and large they’re clean, they’re safe, they’re big places that not enough people know about. I’m working on that, but I work for the department, so of course I’m going to say that but if other journalists give us a shot... we can talk, we can do on site, bring video. Let folks see and feel what’s going on at our facilities.

GT: Right yeah, I mean I didn’t know the rec center was there. I think though, that there are a lot of people that want to help make a difference, they just don’t know how to help or where.

AJ: To that end, we just started speaking to Monica... Hankins? I forget her name, but she’s at Temple Univesity. I think she’s in the community outreach office. We’re just in the beginning process hopefully it gets bigger, and a much longer term partnership.