District 7 hosts family sports night with numerous activities for families

Sept. 29, 2019

Kyle Knox

Gila River Indian News

District 7 Service Center and Tribal Recreation hosted the inaugural Family Sports Night Saturday, Sept. 28, to encourage and recognize movement and activity in common sports as another form of wellness for Community members.

Tribal Recreation and Wellness Program Manager Angel Orque said, “the goal of the event is to highlight the activity that is involved with various sports most enjoy regularly.” Further saying, “We could have had a run, group aerobics session, lifted weights together, but we wanted a night for family fun through movement.”

In August, Tribal Recreation held a similar event in District 3, which featured more outdoor activities such as mud volleyball and mud tug-o-war. That event brought 150 people out, and they wanted to try and make this event more family-oriented with gymnasium tricycle races, a dodgeball tournament and basketball bump-out challenge.

Around 200 Community members attended and participated in numerous activities for all ages.  And closing out the night was a “glow-in-the-dark” Zumba workout held outdoors on a basketball court to take advantage of the cooler temperatures.

District 7 recently hired Jodie Mercado as the new recreation coordinator to help host events like Family Sports Night.  Mercado is grateful for the collaboration with Tribal Recreation and thanks to the district’s recreation committee and volunteers.

District 6 and District 7 Public Health and Nursing had a booth set up to provide flu shots, blood pressure and sugar checks.