A DAY IN THE PARK

Valley Plaza Recreation Center

12240 Archwood St., North Hollywood

Size: 64 acres.

Facilities: 350-seat auditorium, gymnasium, three baseball diamonds (one lighted), outdoor basketball court, children’s play area, picnic area, soccer field, four lighted tennis courts.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Information: (818) 765-5885.

For years now, children young and not-so-young have been coming back to Valley Plaza Recreation Center’s summer and winter camp programs to see Super Snail. She is not a large mollusk; neither is she slow-moving. Super Snail is camp director Naomi Fried and the youngsters love her.

“It started kind of slowly, but after my first year, word of mouth got out and we’ve had more kids than we can handle interested in our camp every year since,” said Fried, who has worked at the park for five years and instituted the tradition of nicknaming everyone at the camp. “We all have silly names, we all act silly and we all have a great time.”

Although the park has many other programs (such as women’s basketball night each Wednesday) that make it popular with the North Hollywood community, it is the camp programs that keep them coming back year after year. Fried, who works with park director Marty Jacobson, said many children come from as far away as Palmdale and Valencia to attend the summer and winter camp programs.

“We’ve had to develop a teen club because some of our kids are more grown up now and they still want to be involved,” Fried said. “And that’s the whole point. Give kids an alternative to the activities they find on the streets.”

Sign-ups are going on now for youth soccer and winter camp.