In order to bring their community together and create more recreation opportunities, this MIRA team created Southern Perry Unified Recreation. SPUR is a group of Southern Perry citizens, young and old, who are working together to bring more recreation to their community.

After conversations with community members on the MIRA team, they decided on the goal of creating a publicly funded recreation department to serve the residents in the southern local school district area of Perry County.

In order to achieve their goal the team "joined forces" with two other community groups, Citizens for Southern Local and the Sunday Creek Associates. These groups were also interested in recreation and activity for the youth and adults of the area. The partners established an interim board, organized an office space and decided on two major strategies. Their first strategy was to research the Ohio revised code regarding methods for organizing publicly funded recreation programs and then begin to community support for putting a local levy on the ballot. The second strategy was to build demand for the recreation program within their community by offering activities in the area.

Citizens for Southern Local is a small citizen interest group which helped organize a school levy campaign and recently took on the local sponsorship of youth wellness enrichement programs. Sunday Creek Associates organized and operated an eight week summer recreation program, KIDS SUMMER, for youngsters ages 6-14. SPUR will be managing this program this year and, in addition, a TEEN SUMMER program offered for the first time this summer.

The effort to gather support for the levy is still underway. Currently, SPUR is offering fun activities that improve the quality of life for the kids and adults who participate. This is an ongoing project and the team members are searching for additional funds to help sustain their efforts.