Willow Park might be full of young families, but that doesn’t mean all of them can be found at the local park.
The problem, said Kaija Belfry Munroe, is that the playground equipment piece is geared toward toddlers and not children over the age of three.
“My four-and-a-half-year-old has aged out of that piece. She never asks to come to Willow Park,” she said.
She and others in the neighbourhood set up a community group on Facebook to call for a makeover of the site, and on the weekend, volunteers were able to start installing new equipment that will augment the current playground by providing places to play for older kids in order to get them active and outside.
The new piece can attach to the existing swings. Aimed at older children, the unit includes a spinner or accelerator, a rope bridge, spots to climb and monkey bars. On Saturday, the volunteers were busy connecting the pieces, including parts of a large erector set.
“What we kind of heard is people would like one good piece first,” Belfry Munroe said.
The organizers surveyed people in the neighbourhood this spring about different designs. The residents were split between two, but in the end the organizers talked to the equipment manufacturer about one option that incorporated elements from the second.
“It went back and forth between myself and the company,” Belfry Munroe said.
Over the course of roughly a year, Belfry Munroe and others have been working with the District of Squamish to gain support.
She even had her students at Quest University put together a film project by interviewing parents in Willow Park about the need for a renovated playground, which was shown to council last December. Initially, the district agreed to come up with $40,000 but later increased this to $46,000. Belfry Munroe added that district staff members have also been helpful in moving along the project.
With the labour, the volunteer association was able to help keep the cost of the project down.
The members also worked with FraserWood Industries, which provided material for a border around the park space, worth roughly $4,000.
Another need at the park is seating for older people in the neighbourhood, an idea area resident Mangaljit Virk supports.
“We need some more benches,” he said while on hand for the assembly on Saturday.
Still, even with the work, he feels more needs to be done and says the trail area adjacent to the park creates some safety concerns because of untrimmed thorn bushes and dark areas that provide sheltered area for partiers at night.
“It’s dangerous. It’s not safe,” he said.
The makeover of the park is not done yet, Belfry Munroe added, as they plan to approach service clubs in the area about helping with more work at the site, especially landscaping.
Meanwhile, another neighbour is working on writing a grant proposal to help improve access at the site for people with mobility issues.
“I’ve seen wheelchairs stopped at the entrance of the park,” she said.
The group also plans to meet with a landscaper later in September to assess the green space needs at the site.
