The Recreation Department is located at 275 Beaver Street, Franklin MA 02038.
The Recreation Department offers Franklin residents a variety of programs and activities for youth and adults, as well as coordination of youth sports organizations field use and facility rental. The department operates and schedules activities for Beaver Pond (beach and turf field), Fletcher Field (baseball fields and courts), Dennis Pisani Softball Field, Henry "Ski" Faenza Playground (Nason Street Tot Lot), King Street Memorial Park, Dacey Community Field, and Meadowlark Lane complex. The department is also responsible for scheduling the use of all school athletic fields for our youth sports organizations. Our department works closely with the various town youth sports organizations and the Athletic Director Karrah Ellis to schedule all youth sports activities around the high school team practices and games.
The Franklin Recreation Department had a great fiscal year and really expanded their program offerings and participation numbers. From July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023 we enrolled 6,635 participants. We have seen larger participation in our summer camp, street hockey, field hockey and pee wee baseball programs.
Recreation Programs Summer Camp
An eight week summer camp was held at King Street Memorial Field from June 27-August 19, 2022. The program hours were Monday-Friday from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm daily. Activities included: organized games, arts and crafts, water inflatables, sports, and weekly field trips. The 8 week camp featured camp shirt tie dye on Tuesdays, field trips on Wednesdays, a giant slip and slide/water slide every Tuesday and Thursday, and Pizza day Fridays. The Franklin Summer Camp Directors this year were Jonathan Geromini and Tim Shannon. The Franklin Summer Camp staff included: Lily DiGiacomo, Ryan Angermeier, Jason D'Valentine, Sean Vinson, Derek Terwilliger, Alexis Halet, Benjamin Zia, Brendan Grace, Joey Simone, Tim O'Keefe, Katie Jones, Kendall Jones, Savannah Nosek, Kyle Palmieri, Norah MacCallum, and Jason D'Matteo.
Pre-Season Flag Football Camp led by flag football coordinator, Jack Geromini. The 3 day camp from 9:00 am-12:00 noon helped prepare players for the season with practice time and games.
Chilson Beach
Chilson Beach was open from June 18-August 20, 2022 with a swim at your own risk policy. No lifeguards were on duty. We did have gate guards on duty to check for residency as the beach remains Franklin residents only. The pond was tested weekly by RI Analytical for safe swimming. For information on Chilson Beach and our water testing results, please visit: http://www.franklinma.gov/recreation-department/pages/beaver-pond
At the above website, residents can check the water quality and E-coli levels as we run a water quality check every week to make sure it is safe for swimming.
On the turf field at Beaver Pond, we continue to host soccer, field hockey, flag football, and boy's lacrosse at the youth level. The turf field was used for the Franklin Recreation Department's NFL Flag football, Franklin Youth Soccer, and Franklin Youth Boys Lacrosse, as well as yoga for senior citizens, tai chi, boot camp, and many other recreational activities. At the High School level, we continue to host FHS girls field hockey and FHS Girls Soccer in the fall and FHS Boys Lacrosse in the spring. A portable recycled plastic walkway is on site for handicap accessibility to the water edge and playground area. The turf field was recently resurfaced in 2017.
Youth Basketball Program
The Youth Basketball program now involves over 1,000 children, 122 teams, 218 coaches, and utilizes every school gymnasium in town. The Recreation Department continued its basketball program to include High School aged kids in FY2023. The program has grown to offer this intramural basketball program for the Summer, and Winter seasons. This intramural program gives kids in grades 9-12 a chance to continue playing pick-up basketball on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday nights. The program utilizes school gyms at Horace Mann Middle School, Remington Elementary, J.F. Kennedy School, Keller Sullivan Middle School, Keller Sullivan School and Franklin High School gym. In FY 2023 the youth basketball program ran from November 12 -March 11 on Saturdays. The FYBL is divided into nine divisions: Kindergarten (co-ed), 1st & 2nd Grade Boys, 1st & 2nd Grade Girls, 3rd & 4th Grade Boys, 3rd-5th Grade Girls, 5th & 6th Grade Boys & 6th-8th Grade Girls, 7th & 8th Grade Boys, and High School
Intramural division. The K-4th grade leagues are non-competitive learning experiences for the children with the focus on fundamental basketball skills. Grades 5th-8th grade basketball leagues start to teach the kids different rules, zone defense, pressing, and traits of competitive basketball. Ten players are drafted to each team and games are played weekly on Saturdays.
Pee Wee Baseball
The Pee Wee Baseball program is an introductory baseball program for children ages 4-6 years old. It was created in 1999 by Recreation Director, Ryan Jette. Since then, the program has grown to over 280 kids in the spring and summer tee ball program. Taking his lifelong baseball coaching experience coupled with past employment with Major League Baseball International, Ryan created a beginners baseball program that teaches kids the proper techniques of hitting, fielding, base running and throwing. This year, our Pee Wee Baseball program was run by Program Coordinator, Sean Fitzpatrick. We also ran a summer pee wee league for 6 year olds that was popular.
Track and Field
The Recreation Department's track and field program numbers have increased drastically. On top of offering our annual Winter Track and field program to over 100 athletes ranging from Kindergarten to Eighth grade, we are now offering Spring, Fall and Winter track programs. These running programs are coached by Stacey Federico and she also receives help from High School track athletes.
NFL Flag Football
The Recreation Department teamed up with the NFL to bring this non-contact flag football league to kids aged 6-14 years old. 383 kids signed up to play each Tuesday & Thursday evening at the Beaver Pond Turf Field. Reversible NFL game jerseys, playbooks, belt/flag setup and access to the NFL Kids website gives kids the opportunity to follow their favorite player or team. Players learned the fundamentals of throwing, catching, running and teamwork. This program continues to be one of the best programs the Recreation Department runs and it is because of our wonderful program coordinator, Jack Geromini who has been supervising this program for 20 years.
Girls Lacrosse
In FY 2023, our 8 teams participated in the Founders League. This league provided excellent competition for our growing players. There were 2 teams at the 1st-2nd grade division. There were 2 teams at the 3rd & 4th Grade division. There were 2 teams at the 5th & 6th Grade level. And there were 2 teams at the 7th & 8th Grade level. All levels play in 8 regular season games. Franklin Girls Lacrosse is one of the largest girls' lacrosse programs in the area.
NHL Street Hockey
This summer, our street hockey program was very popular with over 125 kids and 12 NHL teams represented. We hold a skills clinic for the first four sessions to evaluate the player skills. Then, we break them up into equal teams so that games will be fair and fun for all. Teams play twice a week, Monday and Wednesday 5:00pm-8:00pm. Jack Geromini is the program coordinator with the help of FHS hockey team players. Our Street Hockey program participated at the beautiful Fletcher Field rink located at 51 Peck Street.
Girls Field Hockey
Franklin Recreation offers girls youth field hockey in many formats throughout the year. The fall season runs from the end of August-end of October.. Our Recreation Department actually runs the Commonwealth Field Hockey League with just under 100 teams from all over Massachusetts. Kim Carney, our Program Coordinator organizes the entire league and spends countless hours formulating schedules, rosters, website and coordinating officials for the games. The Kindergarten developmental division is an in-house program featuring practice sessions and some in-house small-sided games. The1st & 2nd grade, 3rd & 4th grade, 5th & 6th and the 7th & 8th grade teams will play in the Commonwealth League with 8 games vs. surrounding towns. 147 girls comprise nine teams from Franklin in the fall. Franklin Recreation also runs the entire league for over 28 towns and 110 teams from around the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We manage the website, create the schedule, organize officials and oversee all the entire league.
The full Recreation Department report can be found in one PDF ->
The full Town of Franklin FY 2023 Annual Report can be found online
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| Annual Report Of The Recreation Department: FY 2023 Report |
