Roseville Police Activities League, RPAL, provides an opportunity for students and Roseville residents to get involved in their community. After earning a grant from Placer County, the RPAL program has been able to offer unique experiences for local kids.

     The program offer kids a chance to participate in outdoors activities that encourage leadership skills, independent thinking and teambuilding, such as camping, fishing, biking, spelunking and skiing. RPAL offers all of these programs free of charge.  

     During summer vacation and school-year breaks, Roseville High School students can volunteer to help out with these activities, acting as mentors to the children.

     According to Officer Carlos Cortes, RHS’s youth service officer, the RPAL program is an excellent opportunity for students to gain in community service hours and leadership experience as well as a chance to have a good time and help other kids through new and exciting experiences. Students that participate regularly at the RPAL gym may be selected to be mentors to the younger kids that go on the teambuilding trips. Students have to be at least fourteen years old to join the leadership program, but can be as young as eight to be a part of the general activities.

     “We want kids that like to work,” said Cortes. “Kids who want to be leaders to other kids.”

     Junior Brieanna Perkins, sophomore Luca Conoscenti and freshman Tyler Murphy have all taken part in previous RPAL trips as mentors.

     Perkins has been involved in the RPAL program for almost three years, and looks forward to continued volunteerism, and eventually working for the program when she turns eighteen.

     “I love it,” she said. “[The best part] is all the people that work there and all the kids that go there. It’s like a family.”

     Conoscenti also reported positive experiences.

     “I definitely recommend it,” he said. “Especially if you’re bored during the summer.”

     According to Perkins and Conoscenti, the program is fun and constructive.

     “I think it’s made me grow a lot.” Perkins said. “[Skill-building activities and] goal-setting practices have helped me improve my patience and I’ve been able to apply it to [broader aspects of] my life.”

     Cortes is very proud of them and of other students who make the effort to be a part of RPAL and a mentor to others.

     However, Cortes would like more people to participate.

     The most recent RPAL trip had half as many attendees as usual, and although there are 60-70 kids in RPAL gym over the summer, only a fraction of that knows about and participates in the excursions. In the most recent trip to the Alliance at the Redwoods campground, there were only eight kids who attended, about half of the projected number.

     “We need more kids,” said Cortes.