The St. Charles Parish Parks and Recreation department recently announced its partnership with SuperTots New Orleans to bring football and volleyball programs for toddlers, with activities beginning in August.
“This is the first time St. Charles Parish has offered programming for kids as young as 2.5 years and really focusing on this 2.5 to 4.5 [years old] age group,” Alissa Cavaretta, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation said.
The program is being put on for the parish by Skyhawks Sports Academy, which markets itself as a national leader in youth sports programming using its two program brands: Skyhawks and SuperTots. SuperTots first came to the New Orleans area in 2021 via a franchise, expanded quickly, and currently serves 3,000 local children annually.
“This initiative will be a springboard for our young athletes and will help to instill active lifestyles and shape our children into well-rounded individuals,” Parks and Recreation Director Duane Foret said.
Registration began Saturday, July 15 at a cost of $124 per participant per season. The initial class offerings were expected to fill up quickly with most spots already filled at time of press. Cavaretta said Parks and Recreation does plan to offer additional SuperTots classes later if officials continue to see high demand from area residents.
The football program, known as 1stDownTots, will take place Tuesdays at the West Bank Bridge Park Field 10, running from August 22 to September 26. The volleyball program, known as VolleyKats, will be held on Thursdays at the Edward A. Dufresne Community Center from August 24 thru September 28. Each football and volleyball program will break down into two groups in two time slots, based on age of the child.
“Each class size is very small, simply due to the fact of the kids age for safety reasons, the amount of teachers or coaches that they need per kid – it’s very tailored to all of those factors,” Cavaretta said.
Talks to start this new program began last year, Cavaretta said, in an effort to find the best tailored solutions for parish residents; efforts to start the program began to ramp up in the fall, leading to the formal release of the new program in late summer. Skyhawks Sports Academy had begun expanding rapidly in the New Orleans area the last two years, which is how the Parks and Recreation Department officials first became aware of the program. Cavaretta said the Parks and Recreation department started seeing an increase of St. Charles Parish residents looking for the program locally, given it is geared towards any toddler.
“That is one of the keys of their programming – it’s for any kid; it doesn’t matter the gender of the child,” Cavaretta said. “It really is just to start getting the kids into mobility, agility, balance, speed techniques that they might be able to start seeing as they continue to age and progress within the sport, and also get them used to being in a classroom and social setting.”
Owners of the local Skyhawks franchise said expanding into St. Charles Parish made sense, as they started seeing an increase in St. Charles Parish parents traveling to other areas in order to access the program.
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