Hazleton Area Recreation Program - HARP

🌊🎉 FIELD TRIP DAY IS FINALLY HERE! 🎉🌊

Today is a BIG day for our HARP Summer Activity Center! After 4 years, we’re heading out on our first field trip, and we couldn’t be more excited! 🚌☀️💙

A HUGE thank you to our amazing sister organization, Collaborative Autism Movement, for making this special day possible by sponsoring our trip to the CVCO Pool! We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to Camp Orchard Hill for graciously providing transportation to and from the pool. We are so thankful for community partners who believe in creating unforgettable experiences for our kids! ❤️

🏖️ Please make sure your child brings:
💦 Towel
🩱 Swimsuit
👟 Swim socks or water shoes
💧 Water bottle
🛟 Floats (if desired)
🏐 Pool toys
🥽 Goggles
☀️ Sunscreen (already applied before arrival is appreciated!)
💵 Extra spending money (optional)

⏰ Important Reminder: We expect to return to HARP by 1:30 PM, so please plan for a later pickup than usual today.

We can’t wait to make memories, splash into some summer fun, and enjoy this exciting milestone together! Be sure to follow along—we’ll be sharing lots of photos from our adventure! 📸🌞💙

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🎉☀️ Another unforgettable day at HARP Summer Activity Center! ☀️🎉

Today was packed with creativity, laughter, and just the right amount of messy fun!

🍝 Our campers turned simple cardboard, yarn, and a few weights into the coolest Spaghetti Gobblers! These silly creations are built for one thing—RACING! We can’t wait to see whose gobbler can chomp down their noodles the fastest. Even our amazing CARES VIPs joined in and made their own, and we’re so excited to watch them challenge each other during Friday’s group!

💦 Then came everyone’s favorite messy moment… Water Orbeez! Our younger friends headed outside to explore the squishy, slippery texture, and before long it turned into an epic Orbeez battle! The smiles, squeals, and nonstop giggles made every second (and every bit of cleanup!) completely worth it. We have a feeling some of our adults were having just as much fun as the kids! 😄

❤️ These are the moments that make summer at HARP so special—learning through play, making memories, building friendships, and creating joy every single day.

🌟 Join us tonight for our live fitness classes!
🥊 5:00 PM – Youth Boxing with Coach Amaury
💃 7:00 PM – Zumba with Ange (Just $7 for non-members. This class is not included with HARP memberships.)

Bring a friend, get moving, and come be part of the HARP family! We can’t wait to see you tonight! 💙💚

🦋 HARP Summer Activity Center Update 🦋

We had a wonderful last two days at HARP’s Summer Activity Center!

We released another round of our beautiful Painted Lady butterflies and hope they’ll stick around our garden to enjoy the flowers and plants we’ve worked so hard to grow. Watching them take flight has been such a magical experience for our kids!

Because of the poor air quality caused by the Canadian wildfire smoke, we haven’t been able to spend as much time outdoors as we’d like. Instead, we’ve been making the most of our time inside by getting creative!

Today, the children transformed the artwork they created with our special guest, Christian from Christian’s Crayons, into personalized thank-you cards. Each child selected their favorite section from the large mural they created together on a 20-foot roll of paper, carefully cut it out, mounted it on cardstock, and wrote a heartfelt thank-you message to each of the special guests who have visited us over the past five weeks. It was a meaningful way to reflect on all the wonderful people who have made this summer so memorable.

For Thankful Thursday, we also began creating beautiful tie-dye flowers. The petals were still a little too wet to assemble, so we’ll finish putting them together on Monday. We can’t wait to share the finished project!

A very special thank-you goes to our friends at Alta Pizza for treating us to an extra-delicious pizza lunch! 🍕 We especially appreciate that gluten-free options were available so every child could enjoy the meal together. To make it even better, each child was able to take home a bagged lunch for later.

Thank you to everyone who continues to make our Summer Activity Center such an incredible experience for our children. ❤️

Tonight’s Classes
🏋️ 5:00 PM – Weights and Core with Christie
🥊 5:00 PM – Boxing with Coach Amaury
💃 7:00 PM – Zumba with Ange ($7)

We hope to see you tonight!

We have our monthly foods distribution today ending at 1 pm or when food runs out. We have enough for the first 75 families, including milk, eggs, frozen chicken 🙌🏼 we are located at 600 South Poplar Street!

🥫 HARP Monthly Food Drive 🥫

Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, July 15, from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM for our monthly food distribution.

We have enough food to serve 75 families, and assistance will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last.

Please note: There will be no admittance into the facility. For everyone’s safety and efficiency, all food packages will be distributed at the door.

📅 Wednesday, July 15
🕚 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
📍 Hazleton Area Recreation Program (HARP)

We are grateful to our community partners and supporters who make this monthly food drive possible. Together, we are helping ensure that no family goes hungry.

🦋 Summer Activity Center – Today at HARP 🦋

We got ahead of the heat this morning and gave our older butterflies their very first flight! Their wings had hardened enough, and we noticed they weren’t enjoying the nectar in their habitat as much anymore. So, we released them into a beautiful area filled with clover, Crown Vetch, and Milkweed—some of their favorite plants.

Watching them take flight was truly magical. Each of the kids had the opportunity to gently hold a butterfly on their finger before it fluttered away. It’s a moment none of us will forget!

We stayed outside for nearly 45 minutes enjoying our Ninja Course, shooting hoops, and using our imaginations on the Radio Flyer seesaw as we “flew” to all kinds of magical places. Once the temperatures started climbing, we headed back inside to cool off.

This afternoon, we took another shot at one of our 3D printing projects. We ran into a few issues with our new filament spools, so we’ll spend some time troubleshooting tomorrow. That’s all part of learning, and we’re excited to figure it out together!

🌟 Tonight’s Live Classes
🕔 5:00 PM
💃 Zumba with Christie
🥊 Youth Boxing with Coach Amaury

🕖 7:00 PM
💃 Zumba with Ange ($7 per class)

We hope to see you tonight

What an exciting day at Summer Activity Center! 🦋☁️🖨️🚒

Today we finally got our first glimpse of our beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies! They began emerging from their chrysalises yesterday, and today at least a dozen were drying their wings in their new habitat. We carefully transferred the remaining chrysalises that have not yet emerged into their own habitat, and the kids were absolutely amazed as they watched the butterflies gently open and wipe their wings before taking their very first flights. It was such a special moment to witness together!

Our younger group had a blast making homemade cloud dough. It was a hands-on sensory activity that everyone loved, and they had so much fun creating and exploring.

Our older group got an exciting introduction to our brand-new 3D printers, generously donated by Amazon! We assembled them today, completed our very first test print, and now we’re brainstorming what our first group project should be. We can’t wait to see what our kids create!

To top off the day, we experienced a false fire alarm. While it certainly got everyone’s attention, it turned into a great learning experience. The children stayed calm, and they even got to see the firefighters in all of their gear up close. Once they learned it was a false alarm, they thought it was pretty cool—and, most importantly, they learned there was nothing to be afraid of.

Every day at Summer Activity Center is filled with learning, discovery, creativity, and a little adventure!

🚴 Tonight’s Live Class
🕔 5:00 PM – Indoor Spin with Christie

We hope to see you there!

🍂 Thankful Thursday was filled with special moments, wonderful surprises, and so much gratitude at HARP today!

One of our amazing boys brought in his beloved pet, Bun Bun, a sweet floppy-eared rabbit, to visit with everyone. We spent some quiet time together in the group room watching Bun Bun happily munch on fresh kale and Swiss chard picked right from our garden. Then we took Bun Bun outside for a walk on a leash, and the kids absolutely loved spending time with our furry friend!

A huge thank you to our friends at Alta Pizza for treating us to a delicious lunch today! It was such a special surprise, and we were also able to send each child home with a bagged lunch for later.

We were also excited to welcome special guests from Amazon, who delivered our two new 3D printers! We can’t wait to get them up and running next week and begin creating some incredible projects with our kids.

Thank you to everyone who helped make today’s Thankful Thursday so memorable. We are truly grateful for our community and all of the people who support our mission. ❤️

🌟 Tonight’s Live Classes:
🕔 5:00 PM
💪 Step Weights & Core with Christie
🥊 Youth Boxing with Coach Amaury

🕖 7:00 PM
💃 Zumba with Ange – Just $7!

We hope to see you tonight