About The CRA

Our Mission

The Community Recreation Association’s mission is to build a sense of community by offering social, educational, recreational, cultural, and wellness programs to the Central Berkshire community in a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment. We are a collaborative non-profit charitable organization open to all ages since 1923.

Our History

In 1908, W. Murray Crane funded the construction of the Dalton Youth Center (DYC) and upon his death in 1920, his Will requested the construction of the community house. The house opened in November 1923 and has been continuously operational since that time, delivering quality programs through the organization referred to as the Community Recreation Association (CRA).

Present Day

The CRA is a nonprofit organization that provides social, educational, recreational, cultural, and wellness services for people of all ages in the Central Berkshire region. We welcome anyone interested in attending the many programs and events held on our campus, which include the DYC, the house at Mill + Main, and the W. Murray Crane Community House.

The CRA is an active organization, always changing with the needs of our community. In the early 1920s, when it first opened, it was a place where men and women could come to meet, learn, attend shows and swim, bowl, and play basketball. Over the years, although the mission and values have remained the same, the social, educational, cultural, recreational, and wellness activities continually evolved. Men and women no longer come in their separate entrances, and the men’s smoking room was removed a long time ago!

Today, the CRA offers approximately 100 programs to the youth and adults of our community, making it a community house in the truest sense of the word. We place a strong emphasis on children and families, delivering after-school care, sports, and a wide variety of enrichment programs to our community. The CRA welcomes over 60,000 individual visits each year.

Of particular note is the value the CRA provided to the local community during the Covid-19 pandemic. The CRA was able to adapt to the community needs and provide vital services to families and children to help them thrive during the crisis. Examples include providing essential worker day care and remote educational programs for school-age children, hosting online and outdoor fitness classes, sending letters and making check-in calls to our house-bound senior members. The CRA also helped engage in food insecurity challenges through food drives and mobile food trucks. All of these services were recognized by the community as unique and beneficial.

One of the vital services we provide is the after-school program at Craneville, Kittredge and Becket-Washington elementary schools and the DYC. These programs offer a safe environment for the children of working parents, providing a place to study, be tutored and play with peers. These services are also offered during school vacations, in-service days, snow days, and summer vacation.

We offer many types of sports programs, all focusing on building teamwork, good sportsmanship, healthy exercise, and fun. Every season offers a choice of sports including soccer, football, cheer, basketball, volleyball, softball, and baseball. In most of these sports we offer a house league and, for the more competitive in nature, the travel league, which competes with other towns in our county.

At the Youth Center, young adults are offered services such as tutoring, MCAS/SAT-prep classes, dances,  and many other age-appropriate programs. The Junior Leaders, Senior Rotary Interact, and Youth Advisory Board (YAB) clubs bring our young people together for fun and community involvement. Members of the clubs volunteer in various CRA and town activities, from helping with holiday parties, working concession stands and coaching sports to collecting coats for a coat drive. In addition, for many years we have offered programs for families with children with disabilities. Serving special needs children from all over Berkshire County, our adaptive programs have paired them with high school students who meet every Sunday to play gym games, soccer, baseball, swim, and dance, among other things. Parents and siblings are encouraged to participate. Approximately five years ago, we added the Saturday Night Social and two years ago we began a partnership with Community Access to the Arts (CATA) to expand programming into the fine arts.

At the CRA, members of our community enjoy a fitness center, indoor pool, basketball court, indoor batting cage (seasonal), pickleball courts, and meeting rooms for various functions. Since 1995 the CRA Wellness Center has been meeting the community’s fitness needs in many ways. A variety of options are offered, from Free Motion equipment to free weights, to a variety of fitness classes including yoga, dance, and muscle strengthening. June 2021 marked the tenth anniversary of our co-location with Berkshire Physical Therapy and Wellness. The Wellness Center includes a personal trainer, post-rehabilitation therapy, and sport/specific personal training. They have been a great addition to our center and our customers have found it very convenient.

Our pool also offers a variety of services to keep our community safe and active. We offer swim lessons to all ages, and the CRA is home to the Otters swim club. Water aerobics and adult lap swim are two of our most popular time slots. The CRA is also a very popular venue for birthday parties. Combining use of the pool and a meeting room, families have plenty of room for cake and presents and swimming!

The basketball court is one of our multi-purpose rooms. In addition to lunch-time basketball, it is used extensively in the winter by our youth basketball programs, and kids are often found shooting hoops after school. We also offer adult recreation including cornhole and table tennis to seniors. Numerous exercise classes are also held in this area, including yoga, aerobics, and strength training.

Finally, the CRA offers programs for families, including events such as the fishing derby, Easter egg hunt, Music on Main concerts on the lawn, Halloween Family Walk, and Light Up the Holidays Parade in downtown Dalton. The CRA recognizes the fact that families have changed over the years and, therefore, their needs have changed as well. We pride ourselves in our flexibility and our ability to adjust to our ever-changing environment.

All of this could not happen without the CRA’s most valued asset: our 1,200 volunteers. Time after time they step forward to provide whatever is needed to make the programs work. They are the backbone of this agency and a key ingredient in what makes our community the wonderful place it is to live and work.

CRA funding comes from a variety of sources. For many years, the Town of Dalton has contracted the CRA to provide youth sports and the summer parks program. The CRA also receives generous funding from Berkshire United Way for many of our youth programs, including the DYC. Grants from other local sponsors, memberships, fees, donations, and grants are the final source of our funding. Financial aid is available for families needing assistance. We encourage those who lack the funds needed to participate in our sports or camps to please contact the CRA about support.

The CRA is governed by a 20-member Board of Trustees that meets monthly. The Executive Board of Trustees, which is made up of the officers from the Board, meets on an as needed basis. Also managed as a nonprofit, the Board of Trustees oversees the CRA Executive Director and the programming. The CRA Board of Trustees, Executive Director, and Staff are responsible for fundraising programs throughout the year to help cover the annual budget of approximately $1.5MM. The CRA has operated at a break-even financial basis the past five years.