Jacksonville’s Park and Recreation Department will be taking over the after school program this year for Kitty Stone Elementary students whose parents work during the afternoon. PARD will take over the program from the YMCA, which oversaw the program the last few years.

“It has been a couple of years in the process of us thinking and talking about it, and we just felt the time is right and we had the opportunity,” said PARD Director Janis Burns. “We talked to the school system about it and asked if we could have the opportunity and they went with it.”

Burns said that the program would be headed by staff that were hired because of their love of children.

“Ed Canady is actually our full time staff member who is in charge,” said Burns. “We have hand selected a crew to especially work with those kids, and so far so good.”

Burns said choosing Canady to head the project was an easy decision.

“He is wonderful. You can tell if you spent any amount of time around Ed you know that he has a heart for these kids and these kids love him. He is kind of like the rest of us, we are really just big kids,” said Burns. “Ed really has a heart for the community and this is another way to reach out to the community.”

Canady is well known in the school system and many told him they wanted PARD to take over the after hours program.

“He has been in the schools a lot because he has a daughter in the school system, and I guess just seeing him at the school, it gave a lot of the teachers and the administration opportunities to talk with him and say ‘this is something we would like (PARD) to do because you are local,’” said Burns.

The fact that PARD was local was something that the administration and parents said they wanted in the after school program. Burns said that money was one reason why.

“One, and you hate to think budget, but it keeps our money local. The parents do have to pay for the service, a small fee, but it does keep it local,” said Burns. “To us the payment just helps us cover the costs.”

Burns said parents can trust that their kids are going to be with adults who take care of them as if they are their own.

“We feel those are our kids, so to speak. We want to make sure that our kids have fun and have opportunities and the only way we know to 100 percent to do that is to be involved with them in as many aspects of their lives that we can,” said Burns.

Burns said she would love to see some of the new kids join some of the other programs PARD has to offer.

“Hopefully they will get to know us and our staff and they will feel more comfortable maybe coming in and taking another program with us down the road, and it will give us an opportunity to know them,” said Burns.

On the first day of school, the program had 21 students, but with more signing up everyday, Burns said the group anticipates growing to 50 or 60.

“We have a motto: Serving friends and neighbors in the community,” said Burns. “Ed came up with that when I challenged him to come up with something that represents us, and I think that’s what we do.”