Volunteers spruce up South Park playground

Volunteers work with West Point Public Works Director Flavian Boeding to add wood chips and timbers to the South Park playground equipment last week. Courtesy photo.

Posted Thursday, July 22, 2021 3:55 pm

BY PCC STAFF

WEST POINT - The youth of Holy Trinity, organized by the West Point Saint Mary’s Youth Minister Nathan Clark and his wife Kristine, staged a revitalization of the South Park Playground located near the Jim Bethurem Field.

Approximately fifteen youth with a few neighbors in the area came together to spread a new layer of playground safe wood chips over the older layer last set in place in 1990 according to the West Point City Public Works Superintendent, Flavian Boeding.

More than 4800 cubic yards of the wood chips (1/2 of a semi-truck load) were delivered two weeks ago but a date was difficult to schedule due to the huge rain falls over this period. This past Wednesday was a perfect afternoon to bring in some small equipment provided by Luke Boylan of West Point and many rakes and shovels to evenly spread the wood chips.

Some of the border timbers surrounding the playground also required replacing. A total of seven timbers were dug out of the ground and replaced with newer timbers to secure the wood chips and add some additional safety to the playground area.

A volunteer works power washing playground equipment in West Point's South Park last week. Courtesy photo.

This created a huge positive impact on the integrity of the playground area, gave the park some curb appeal, plus provided area youth with an afternoon of learning about volunteerism. The youth from the Holy Trinity Youth Ministry was instrumental in the success of this project while giving them an extremely valuable experience through Community involvement.

The City of West Point is grateful for this project and grateful for our youth that support our community and work hard to maintain the City’s best features.