The recreation center has a new director, Maggie Morona, who has past experience working at Disney.
Maggie Morona has always loved summer camp. But she never thought her first job as a 16-year-old camp counselor would come back around years later. Morona is now in charge of the Planteen Recreating Center summer program just weeks before its start date. The gig comes as she begins her new position with the City of Plant City as the director of the center.
She couldn’t be happier.
“I didn’t think that, at the end of the day, that I would end up coming full circle,” Morona says. “But it tickles me pink that that’s what happened, because that was what I gravitated toward when I was young.”
Morona was named director of the Planteen Recreation Center in May, after previous director Jason Hargrove accepted a job in Polk County’s Parks and Recreation department. With just over a month of experience working in the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, Morona already has some big plans in mind.
A Florida native, Morona’s first experience working at a summer camp came at the Patrick Air Force Base’s youth center, south of Cocoa Beach.
“I did what my coaches will be doing for me this summer,” she says.
After graduating from high school, Morona spent some time in the United States Naval Academy and college and worked at Walt Disney World afterward. She spent 11 years at the park, working in operations management in Epcot, Mission: Space, Spaceship Earth and other attractions. She also worked in some of the park’s recreation departments.
In 2008, when the Great Recession hit, Morona was laid off. She later found work with the Boy Scouts of America, spending one year as a sports program director and the rest of her time as a summer camp program director. She spent four years at Flaming Arrow Scout Reservation, in Lake Wales, and two at Sand Hill Scout Reservation, in Brooksville.
Morona became interested in the Plant City job after seeing the posting online. With the ability to give herself a more flexible schedule, to work in recreation year round and to work in the place she’s lived for the last four years, Morona decided to apply.
“I thought, ‘Gosh, I would love to do that all the time,’” Morona says. “I’m really excited about the opportunity.”
She’s spent her first few weeks on the job preparing for the ongoing Summer Youth Program, which started earlier this month, and had been developing ways to give the kids a new experience.
“Summer camp is just really special for me,” Morona says. “You get the kids for a short amount of time, but you can do a lot of things with them — you can get them hands on, and you can get them excited about things.”
Her main goal is to get the kids playing outside as much as possible, which means the kids will play some sports they’ve never tried before. This includes “human foosball,” involving a large amount of pool noodles, and gaga ball, an Israeli game that combines dodgeball and soccer in a pit.
She hasn’t stopped at summer camp, though. Morona is also planning to get as much use out of the Planteen Recreation Center as possible and will try to get more of the community involved in the building’s day-to-day activities once the summer program ends.
“My first two weeks here, I spent time going through the bins of all the stuff we used to offer for the past 20, 30 years,” Morona says. “It was neat to see: ‘Oh, we still have ceramics! Oh, we still have a kiln! Oh, we used to teach sewing!’”
Under Morona’s watch, the Planteen Recreation Center will give Plant Citians the opportunity to put their talents on display for others and pass along their skills.
She also hopes to make the center into a hangout spot for seniors.
“We don’t really have a senior center in the city, so it would be great if we could provide that,” Morona says. “Maybe even just a couple of days a week where they knew, from 11 to 3, Mondays and Wednesdays, they could come hang out with their friends, they could get a cup of coffee, maybe play bridge or bingo — whatever it is that they want to do.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
