Weston Park celebrates new playground
ELKHART — Weston Park Neighborhood is marking a new chapter in its history with the celebration of a new playground.
The park had a playground for 30 years before the new one was put in, said Jamison Czarnecki, superintendent of the parks and recreation department. It has been a long time coming, he said.
'This one's a pretty fun one because I've seen this neighborhood evolve over the last few weeks,' Czarnecki said to a large crowd of people at the celebration Thursday. 'I've come by here and we see some kids every now and then and we see some people hanging out, but the last few weeks you guys have showed up in numbers. Every day there's more than 10 kids on this playground.'
A park is only as good as the people who are using it, Czarnecki said. The parks and recreation department saved $330,000 by using a gametime grant, he said.
Located at the corner of Cedar and North Michigan streets, the park was the former site of Weston School. The celebration included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, tree planting, free Kona Ice and hot dogs for the first 100 attendees. It's part of a larger city-wide effort to upgrade half a dozen parks across the city.
This neighborhood is one of the most dense in the city, Mayor Rod Roberson said. Having strong parks close to home is important for the growth, stability and relationship between neighbors and the city, he said.
'We want to continue to build relationships in our parks because that's how I grew up,' Roberson said. 'I grew up with parks being in my back yard and my front yard and making sure the friends I had in my neighborhood were my friends because of the things we did inside of our parks. This was a park we had a plan for during our Aspire plan.'
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