Scott Swanson
By the end of this summer, Sweet Home kids will be able to go to Sankey Park to enjoy a 1,300-square-foot playground structure that’s the result of some fortuitous financial moves that is giving the city twice what it originally planned for.
The improvements are the realization of a longtime effort by city officials and the Parks and Tree Committee and its former chair, Angela Clegg, who now works as city planner.
“Personally, when I first moved here, I was told not to let my kid go to Sankey Park,” Clegg recalled this week.
She joined the parks committee (which has since been renamed) and employed her expertise as a grant writer for the Watershed Council, for which she worked at the time, to seek funding to improve the parks.
Meanwhile, the committee went to work on ideas and City Engineer Joe Graybill put their vision on paper, said Public Works Director Greg Springman. The layout includes lighting and paths and, eventually, security cameras, which Clegg is working to get grant money for.
Now all that is coming to fruition, thanks to nearly $250,000 in state parks grant money that the city has matched with $163,191, along with some private donations.
GameTime, the company that manufactured the playground structure being installed at Sankey, then provided another $101,000 in grant money, she said.
“We were able to double the size of what we were planning,” Clegg said. The original price of the equipment was $209,276, but Sweet Home was able to get it for $122,120, including freight costs.
Springman said GameTime designed a custom layout for Sweet Home, based on the space that was available at Sankey.
He said it will take about a month to complete the structure. Nearly all the work is being done by city staff, which is how the city was able to come up with matching funds for the state parks grant, Clegg said.
She said the upgrades will include ADA accessibility, which will include ramps to allow children with disabilities to access at least part of the structure.
Last week Public Works staffers were putting the pieces together and this week, Springman said, he’s hoping to get started on concrete work, which will include borders around the 3,300-square-foot playground area that will hold wood chips.
Springman said he hopes to have it ready for kids by the beginning of August, noting that he has two grandchildren who can’t wait to try it out.
Clegg said she hopes to have an official grand opening celebration during the Harvest Festival, if it happens on Oct. 3. Ground was broken for the project at last year’s Harvest Festival.
“This has been a big combined effort between the community and us,” she said.