Pico Rivera’s ‘Walking Crew’ for Children Wins Award

It is 7:30 a.m., the first day of school after the holidays. Seventeen elementary school children, some still yawning and wiping their eyes, have gathered in the recreation center at Rivera Park.

Like every school day morning, parents on their way to work have dropped off their children at the center, where they spend about an hour exercising, playing games and visiting with friends. Recreation Department employees then walk the children several blocks to school.

The Walking Crew program, a day-care service in which the Recreation Department provides supervision for elementary school children before and after school, walking them to and from the school, was started five years ago. The morning “Early Bird” program was added last fall.

“The kids all love it and the parents can’t get enough of it,” said Ralph Aranda Jr. manager of the city’s recreation and community services.

The city recently won an award from the League of California Cities for the Walking Crew program, which provides a low-cost alternative to day-care centers or baby-sitters. A total of 64 California cities competed for the Helen Putnam Award of Excellence, an annual award recognizing outstanding public service.

Parents pay $10 a week per child for morning care and $12 a week for afternoon care, and the number of participants has doubled since 1987, according to Aranda. A total of 300 children from nine elementary schools are signed up.

Before the program was started, “Some parents were paying $60 to $70 a week for a baby-sitter,” Aranda said.

The Rivera Park group, which includes youngsters from Magee and Birney elementary schools, is the largest, with usually about 130 youngsters in the afternoon group, Aranda said. About 29 children attend the morning session, but only 17 attended Tuesday because of the holiday, said Sandy Cardenas, a recreation worker at Rivera Park.

Aranda said the city started the program because of the increasing cost of child care as well as the increasing number of “latchkey” children. “We knew there were a lot of kids who would go home to an empty house or a neighbor’s house,” Aranda said. “We figured if we just met at school and walked the kids to the park, that would help solve the problems.”

After school, the children meet at their school flagpole, where a supervisor with a clipboard checks their names against a list. Parents are asked to notify the Recreation Department if a child is absent from school, he said. The group does not leave the school until all children are accounted for.

At five parks and one playground, the children play kick ball, field hockey, softball and other games under supervision of the Recreation Department staff, Aranda said. On some days, Police or Fire Department officials talk to the children about safety or the dangers of drug abuse.

Parents are expected to pick up their children by 6 p.m.

Cardenas said all the children in Rivera Park’s morning program are enrolled in the afternoon group. She said she has watched children in the group form strong friendships.

“It gives them someone to play with,” Cardenas said. She says there are occasional feuds--someone sometimes gets poked with a pencil--but nothing the recreation staff cannot handle.

“We just sit them down and talk to them,” Cardenas said. Overall, the children get along well, although they sometimes tease each other. On Tuesday, for example, some of the children decided to make fun of 6-year-old Steve Terrazas’ new holiday haircut. The youngster, taking it in stride, just sat and giggled.

Before walking to Magee school, classmates Shani Livous and Veronica Singh, both 9, sang a Christmas song they learned over the holiday break.

“We’re always together,” Shani said. “I like it here because it’s where I met my best friend.”