The sound of laughter reverberates through the air in parks everywhere as small children play their hearts out.
Clarke County has been blessed with multiple parks, and the Clarke County Board of Supervisors has recently been renovating many of the local parks to offer a more appealing, safe, and fun playing environment for the children in the area.
“We had a lot of people asking us to redo the parks and give them something to do to keep them out of trouble, and we thought that was a good idea,” explained Supervisor Darrick Marshall. “We came together with a plan and talked about it as a board. We’ve been redoing the parks, and people have really enjoyed them. We added stuff like picnic tables and barbeque grills. We’ve made it really family oriented. We wanted to make sure that as people go out with their families that they all have something they can do and enjoy. As you go around the communities in the afternoons, these parks are really being used. There is someone at these parks every day.”
They have made a joint effort in redoing some of the parks.
“We refurbished Harris Park in Quitman, which is in my district,” stated Board President Mickey Long. “That was a project with Quitmans Womans Club.”
While they have already done renovations at some parks—Sumrall Park, the park across from Barry and Gardner Funeral Home, Harris Park, the park in Shubuta, and the ball field on River Road in Stonewall—they are still collaborating and working on plans to improve more parks in the area to benefit the youth of the county.
“We have an ongoing project we plan to start with the city,” expressed Mickey. “We’re going to help them renovate the baseball fields. We’re going to try and put some energy back into our children’s baseball fields, and they need it.”
In order to pay for the renovations, the Clarke County Board of Supervisors has used a variety of resources along with the public funds from taxpayers.
“We used budgeted money and money we got from the federal government,” explained Darrick. “We got it from different sources. If we’re going to spend public money, we want to put it back into the public.”
They’ve done a phenomenal job with the parks in Clarke County so far and have even more great ideas to add to the parks in the future. Thanks to planning and working alongside others, the parks in the area are the perfect place for families to enjoy some free time together.
