The Jefferson Parks and Recreation Department will be having its local youth track meet next week.

It will be for 5 to 14 year-olds and will take place at Linduska Field on Tuesday, April 30th. The field events include the standing long jump and softball throw. The track events are the 50, 100, 200, 400 and 800-meter runs. Participants will compete in different age and gender divisions and those that win will qualify to participate in the state meet. JPRD Director Vicky Lautner talks about last year’s success of the program.

“We had close to 35 to 40 children that participated last year and again that’s another program that seems to grow. (It) Depends on the weather, if it’s nice then we’ll get more kids out. I think the only problem is the state meet is during Bell Tower (Festival) so it’s hard for our kids to get over there. So we probably didn’t have the turnout over there that we would’ve liked, but that happens.”

There’s no cost to compete in the local track meet. Check-ins will be at 4:30pm on Tuesday, with the meet to start at 5. Pre-registrations are encouraged by contacting the Greene County Community Center at 515-386-3412 or stopping by to sign up. The state meet will be held on June 22nd in Marshalltown.