Last month the Great Bend Recreation Commission’s board of directors approved a new contract to provide day services to Sunflower Diversified Services, but on Monday GBRC’s Executive Director Diann Henderson said Sunflower won’t approve a contract for the coming year.
Henderson said the decision came as a surprise because Sunflower indicated it intended to approve the contract for Community Habilitation Services. Then a manager notified her that there won’t be a contract for Fiscal Year 2014.
“Sunflower has discontinued our CHS contract,” Henderson told her board. “They said they’ll look at it again in a year.”
Program Coordinator Megan Hammeke said the day activities provided in the CHS contract include craft and nutrition classes for adult clients of Sunflower, which service people with developmental disabilities in Barton, Pawnee, Rice, Rush and Stafford counties. The current contract ends June 30.
GBRC has contracted with Sunflower for about 25 years, Henderson said. The decision will have an impact on the Recreation Commission’s budget, since it is a line item, but shouldn’t affect other programs.
“We want to leave the door open for them in the future, to provide other recreation services,” Henderson said. GBRC will continue to offer other activities to all special needs populations. That includes activities such as dances, picnics and bowling.

Budget hearing
In other business Monday, the GBRC Board changed its next meeting from 4 p.m. on July 8 to 8:30 a.m. on July 12. Its budget hearing will be held during the meeting.
Henderson requested the schedule change because Barton County’s valuation information won’t be available before July 10, she said. The board will hold a budget study session on June 24.
Henderson also reported the Imagination Playground block set was a hit when it was unveiled during June Jaunt.
The large building blocks were used to build a boat, forts and “an alien on a throne,” board member Leonard Kaiser said. Other children just used them for unstructured play.
“The kids were having a blast,” Kaiser commented.
The Imagination Playground will be at the Great Bend Sports Complex this weekend during the American Legion baseball tournament.
Swim lessons, baseball, softball and other GBRC summer activities are under way. There will be a Fishing Fun Day on Friday at Stone Lake, and a cheer leading clinic is coming up. This year’s summer Children’s Theater production, “Cinderella,” will be performed July 23 at the Crest Theater.
For the month of May, GBRC offered 938.75 hours of supervised activities. There were 4,555 people enrolled and 17,282 participants, of which 8,047 were spectators. In May 2012, GBRC had 4,830 enrollments and 12,177 participants.