ABOVE: Instructor Deb Heinrich, left, gets the kids up and jumping around as they warm up for Monday's Tiny Tots Sports Clinic at Fairmont Elementary School, provided through CER. Around 30 kids were signed up to work on multiple sporting skills, including running, throwing and jumping.

FAIRMONT – After doubling from 40 to 89 offerings last year, Fairmont Community Education and Recreation (CER) has sustained that interest among attendees and class leaders.

This year, 84 opportunities have been or will be available since the catalog was first released on April 14. CER Youth Coordinator John Bartscher said it took about five months to complete the catalog.

“We have a lot of things that were there last summer,” he said. “People reach out a few months ago, and they want to make sure they can get in this one. They’re giving us all their dates and times, and we’re putting it all together. It takes a while to get it all up.”

Right now, there are three people who get everything together for CER. Bartscher said they each have their own roles in what to do.

“I do all the technology part of it,” he said. “Kris [Seifert] handles all the people from the community who are reaching out with their information, and she puts it all together. Stephanie [Busiahn’s] the one that reaches out and finds these people.”

Right now, Bartscher said around 25 percent of the CER activities are led by the group itself, while 75 percent are led by others who come in and teach on a variety of subjects. Bartscher said to have reached such a high level of community involvement, it’s a lot of word of mouth.

“We also go to a lot of businesses and meetings and reaching out to people in the school district if they know anybody,” he said. “People hear about us, want to run a class and get everything organized.”

With sustained growth and new classes every year, Bartscher said they have been working on the tech side to make it easier for people to register.

“Buttons on the web page itself that people can click to take them right to the registration page,” he said. “Before, they could come to our website where they can see the catalog and go through it, but now if they see something in the catalog that they’d like, they can click on the button and we’ll take them right to the registration page. That’s made a lot of things a lot more streamlined for people.”

As his focus is on the technology piece, Bartscher said advancements like this are part of the number one thing he’s trying to do.

“As somebody in the community who does sign up for stuff like this, I want it to be as easy as possible,” he said. “I know there are people in the community who aren’t as technologically inclined, so it’s really important we make this as easy for everybody as possible.”

A newsletter called Spark has also been added online. It comes out monthly, functions like a mini-catalog and has already served several functions according to Bartscher.

“A lot of people have signed up for it already,” he said. “Keeping people as informed with these activities as possible. Our catalog’s out, but it’s always hard to get people to find some of these things. A lot of people call and say, ‘Where can I find this?’ Our newsletter has really helped a lot of people kind of stay informed throughout the year.”

This year, new classes include pickleball, track and field, a returning dog manners obedience class, cribbage class for youth and a few fishing programs. Bartscher said dog manners especially came back to some fanfare.

“People in the community are really excited we have that coming back this year,” he said. “We have somebody in the community who reached out and really wanted to do it. We were really grateful.”

As for which classes are racking up the registrations, Bartscher said there are several that have been hits right away.

“A lot of them are programs that people in the community know fill up fast,” he said. “Our Tee Ball program for youth always fills up fast, and that’s been hit pretty hard right away. People like the track and field camp that we haven’t had that’s new this year, and some people have been signing up really quickly for that pickleball.”

Right now, the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus (SMEC) building is still being used by CER as their offices and space for some of their offerings. Bartscher said they’ll be moving to the elementary school at some point, but a set date has not been made yet.

For more information on CER, visit fairmont.k12.mn.us/o/cer or call 507-235-3141.