ABOVE: From left, Berkley Aust, Ali Alshaiknasser and Porter Edman play with building blocks during Cardinal Prime on Wednesday afternoon at Fairmont Elementary School. Cardinal Prime is an enrichment program offered after school through Community Education and Recreation (CER) and supervised by John Bartscher. The program is for children in kindergarten to sixth grade. Registration can be completed online at the CER webstore or by calling CER at (507) 235-3141.

FAIRMONT – From just over 40 offerings last year to 89 this year, the summer Community Education and Recreation (CER) brochure has seen marked expansion.

CER Director Stephanie Busiahn said they have a significant number of youth programs being rolled out.

“We have some one-week options,” she said. “Some sports-related stuff, some STEM and more art and creativity programs.”

With the shift from paper to online, Busiahn said the process of getting everything together has become easier. Since last year was the first time doing this, there are some kinks they wanted to iron out for this year.

“We continue to tweak and change some of the ways we display the content,” she said. “With that being digital, that allows us to make changes easier than in the printed brochure.”

Two programs Busiahn said CER is excited to debut are a Lacrosse intro course and a Cardinal Prime Camp. She said community partners have been instrumental in putting some of the offerings together.

“They are coming to us saying, ‘I have an idea, I have a skill,'” Busiahn said. “‘I want to share that with people, but I don’t know how to do it.’ We can plug them right in, and away we go.”

Over her time with CER, Busiahn said it’s rare they turn down including a program in a brochure. By doing so, she said it’s up to the public to respond and show their preferences.

“You don’t know what will stick,” Busiahn said. “You don’t know what will work and what won’t. I am willing to throw it out there and see if that is something that the community responds to.”

Some new technology courses will also be available. Busiahn said each one will focus on a new tool or collection of tools.

“We were able to connect with an instructor that provides Zoom technology classes that have been very interesting,” she said. “There’s Google Suite, getting people familiar with utilizing Google as opposed to Microsoft. Social media marketing, Instagram, ChatGPT; which has been a hot topic as of late.”

In addition to new offerings, several standards will continue to be offered.

“Our park playground program will be back [along with] T-ball and flag football,” Busiahn said.

There’s only one major change to a returning program this year. Busiahn said they experimented last year with having flag football in the summer. After some parents and participants voiced their concerns, Busiahn said flag football is returning to its fall slot, but will stay in the summer brochure.

“It’s in the summer brochure so families can register throughout the summer,” she said. “Our fall brochure wouldn’t come out until after the deadline.”

Busiahn said she is grateful for all of the interest both from participants and community partners in CER programming.

“It makes me happy people are making that connection,” she said. “Willing to step up and be a community champion; provide those offerings for people in our area. I think that’s critical; shows a growing community that shows a hunger for additional activities and programs.”

The brochure will be released April 7, but registration for some programs is already open. Physical copies can be made on request. For more information, visit https://www.fairmont.k12.mn.us/o/cer.