Kristyna Mancias spent eight years at the McAllen Parks and Recreation Department in seeing the impact a range of events can have on a city. 

Her last job in McAllen was superintendent of athletics of the city’s park and recreation department. In June 2023, Mancias decided to make the move to run and manage her own department as the city of Elsa’s director of recreation and communications. It represented a huge shift in city size and scale of a department dedicated to parks and recreation in a community. McAllen’s Park and Recreation Department on its own has more employees than the entire city of Elsa workforce. 

The parks and recreation department in Elsa consists of Mancias and three staffers. It’s big enough for Mancias to have implemented a slew of new programs in Elsa. Youth sports leagues have been organized and launched. Programs for seniors were established. Special events like a recent one featuring Halloween festivities drew over 3,000 visitors.

“Just because we’re small doesn’t mean we can’t do big things,” Mancias said.

‘Why Not?’

For Christmas and the holiday season, Mancias was true to those words by imagining and then executing an event she entitled “Elsa on Ice.”

It’s a 20,000-square-foot surface of frozen synthetic ice that is laid down at The Garden at Pacific Trails in Elsa. It debuted on Dec. 13 to hundreds of Delta Area residents who were eager to experience the ice-skating experience in a community that not long ago had a largely dormant parks and rec department. 

“I heard ‘why Elsa?'” Mancias recalled when pitching the idea of a holiday-time ice rink. “I said, ‘why not?'”

Mancias did her research and found a Dalllas-based company that sets up and rents out the equipment and materials needed for ice rinks. It  may not be the real thing as in a truly frozen ice pond. It’s close enough for a semi-tropical region like the Rio Grande Valley where a snowfall can be a once-every-50-years event. It was a one-day setup in mid-December when the Dallas company and Elsa public works employees collaborated to lay down the surface that would become a temporary but real-enough ice rink. 

“We wanted to bring the wow factor here for the holidays this year,” Mancias said as she watched the workers lay out the rink. “I think we’re going to do just that with Elsa on Ice.”

Community Pride

The Elsa on Ice event is indicative of how the role of parks and rec departments have evolved over the years.

It’s no longer just about cutting grass at parks and ensuring proper maintenance. That remains a core function, but now it’s just as much about sports and leagues and youths being kept busy and engaged with after school activities. There are events to think up and organize, be it the big Christmas parade with giant balloons in McAllen, or the more modest but still important Elsa on Ice where Delta Area kids experience ice skating for the first time.

“I think something like this is a perfect opportunity to do the kind of things they haven’t had here before,” Mancias said of the holiday ice skating in Elsa. “It’s about having activities and events for not only our community, but all of the Delta Area communities. I think it helps to build pride in your community.”

Elsa on Ice continues through Jan. 10 at The Garden at Pacific Trails in Elsa with gates opening daily at 6 p.m. There is an admission price per child and adult and skates and other equipment for beginning skaters is provided.