For many of the people who gathered on October 5th to celebrate the final dedications of ValPLAYso Playground, it was a flashback to the creation of the first park in 1994.
Kaye Frataccia, one of two General Coordinators for the new park, remembered when her sons were little. They helped put screws into the first ValPLAYso park. “It truly is about the next generation,” she said. “It’s about building community spirit more than it is about building a playground. We could have gotten trucks in here to do this job. But the community spirit is priceless.”
She and five others stood before a crowd of volunteers and donors to thank them for over 16,000 man hours and thousands upon thousands of monetary support. Both the new welcome arch and a memorial faceplate, still under construction, were dedicated to them. Family Express, the Champion donor at $250,000, was honored with a pavilion built in their name.
Other corporations pitched in what they could. Businesses like Indiana Beverage, Centier, the Growing Kids Learning Center, and Porter Regional Hospital were featured on the donor pillars that welcome guests to the park. Even individuals and non profits contributed and are recognized forever in the structure of the park. People like Doug and Kathy McMillian, the Kiwanis Club of Valparaiso, and Valpo Firefighters were integral to the project.
The Administrative Assistant of the Director of Valpo Parks, Barbie Johnson, said “you need to thank the community and the only way to do it is public. That community spirit is not something you see everywhere.”
It took a year of hard work, fickle weather, and an abundance of morale to finish the park. The playground itself is celebrating its one year anniversary of entertaining children but this month, for the first time, all the pieces are complete.
The park is a physical representation of our community and how we can join together to make something beautiful. “It really is the vision of all of us,” said Mayor Jon Costas. “We simply tried to bring that vision to reality.”
Another person who has been here since the first ValPLAYso playground was envisioned is the Director of Valpo Parks himself, John Siebert. He was the Director of Parks even then. “We wouldn’t be here without him and his passion,” said Steve Antonetti. “In 1994 and 2014 it was he that made this a possibilty.”
His immediate staff took the stage to announce that a bench would be dedicated to Siebert, to thank him for his undying efforts in support of ValPLAYso. The bench was crafted from the wooden archway of the first park. The ValPLAYso sign that they so lovingly dismantled during the deconstruction of the original park was used as the back of the bench, its welcome still proudly displayed in wood and paint.
Seibert was the last to speak. “We did this,” he said to the community crowded around him. “Come visit it, bring people to it, and be proud of what you did.”