Barbara J Riley Community and Senior Center

I like BJR community center. I like all of the diverse sports and classes they offer, and for the wide range of people they serve. Whether you are 1 or 100, this place has something fun or educational or neat for you to try.
As an adult, I have taken the balloon decorating class, which I thought as helpful for beginners interested in special event balloon design.
For children, we have tried: baseball (DJAA and the summer academy), basketball (Première training camp), & the playground adventure summer camp at Apollo. All have been good for basic/​beginner level activities. You aren’t going to get speciality level or pro training here. Just very basic, but affordable and close/​convenient to keep kids active and busy.
This summer we added golf and a few other offerings so I will update once those classes are completed.

I rented a room for a student recital event I hosted and everyone here is extremely nice.
I spoke to Alfonzo a few times on the phone and all my minor hiccups were handled amazing.
I had a issue with payment due to me getting into a car accident and not being able to get down to the center to pay my balance. Alfonzo allowed me to come down passed my scheduled pay date and pay my balance twice.
This place is beautiful and the staff are amazing!

The Barbara J Riley Community and Senior Center in Downey is a nice, well-​kept facility as far as first impressions go.
For the months of October and November of this year (2014), I signed our 1-​year-​old up for a toddler/​adult-​participation-​required music class. The class was held in a room in this building near the main entrance.
The class was a total of 4 sessions $ 52 for residents, $ 56 for non-​residents. They do accept debit/​credit cards at this Center.
For the time being, I will not re-​register either of my children again for this class for a number of reasons, but as they pertain to this facility…
The registration process could have been simplified. I couldn’t register online because my daughter was not at the appropriate age in September. When I went there in person, I had barely missed the supervisor who needed to leave work early. Had I known I needed her approval, I would have ensured that she was present before going there. The ladies who were at the counter, however, were friendly, but not exactly knowledgable. Their computer and online system was being «slow,» so I waited around a good while. When they called me on the phone to try to take my payment the next day (after approval for our daughter), their computer and/​or online system was «not working right.» After being put on hold twice, I decided I would just revisit them in person as I detest giving out my number on the phone anyway. This time, I saw a different young lady who was a bit more knowledgable.
My husband attended 3 of the 4 sessions with our daughter. I went with her one time, and my third interaction with the staff was drastically different than the previous encounters. A young gentleman seemed very indifferent toward me and another visitor. No welcome. Hi. Smile. Nada. It was not that busy, come on…
The room we were placed in had no working air conditioning and no fans, so it got hot and stinky for our 45-​minute duration. We couldn’t open the doors because, well, we had toddlers in the room. Other sessions were cold in the classroom.
Usually at the end of a class like this, I am given a brief survey either in person or via email. I suppose the City doesn’t care about its patrons’ experiences, which is sadly nothing unusual in my experience.
Review #311

I am a big biased because I work for the city, but the Barbara j Riley community and senior center is one of the best community centers around.
They offer a variety of recreation classes from yoga to art to fitness to preschool and senior programs.
Every business is bound to have a few snags here and there; in this case it’s usually a wrong flyer or a typo in the class guide but aside from that it’s great.
Staff is friendly and knowledgable!!!
They Also rent out the center for parties.
I’m an employee but also a customer, I rent the rooms and take the classes, so stop by and see what they have to offer! :)

This review is for the summer swimming registration for summer 2013.
This is my first experience registering my son for anything Downey community affiliated. I arrived at the Barbara J Riley Community and Senior Center around 12:40. There was already a line formed outside of the building. The people in the very front were sitting in lawn chairs, so who knows how long they had been there! Raffle tickets were handed out at 1:00 pm. We still waited outside for quite a bit in the sun. Finally, the line moves and we enter.
First, there weren’t nearly enough chairs for everyone to sit. Over half the parents had to stand. Almost everyone took their kids. Second, when the recreation personnel spoke, they didn’t even use a microphone so it was nearly impossible to hear what they were saying. They finally wised up and turned on the mic. They explained the registration process and proceeded to call out the last three digits of the raffle tickets. I was among the first 15 numbers called (THANK GOODNESS!!!).
I still had to fill out another form, wait in another line to sign my son up for class, verify his age, and then go wait in yet ANOTHER LINE to pay! SERIOUSLY??? You can do almost anything online these days, this registration process is so archaic! To top it off, when I signed up my son for one session, another parent gave me the heads up that he won’t learn how to swim in one session since there are so many kids he won’t get enough attention from the instructor. Lame.
There has to be a better way to get my son to learn how to swim! I’ve put it off for so many years that I just have to get it over with.