Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
KENANSVILLE — Children in Kenansville are one step closer to having a new, agriculture-themed playground, as town officials move forward with plans to replace the former Kenan Park play area that was removed two years ago.
“The theme we’re working on right now is agriculture,” Kenansville town manager Anna West told Duplin Journal. “It will be a farming-themed playground.”
The new playground will be all-inclusive and handicap accessible, West added. It will also be built on what is known as a “poured in place” surface, a rubberized material on the ground that makes it safer and allows for better wheelchair mobility than a mulch playground surface.
The Kenansville Board of Commissioners is expected to vote on the final plans for the playground at their September meeting. In the meantime, work to prepare the site has already begun.
“We’ve removed some of the trees recently for several reasons,” West said. “It will be easier to maintain without pine straw all over it and some of the trees were leaning and some were starting to deteriorate. We took out what we thought we needed to for safety and to open up the area a little bit.”
Funding for the new playground is coming from a $400,000 grant from the State of North Carolina. In addition, ECU Health Duplin Hospital and the Southern Bank Foundation contributed funds specifically earmarked for the poured-in-place surface. Some additional financial help is coming from a company building the playground equipment.
“One of the companies we are working with has grants,” West said. “They have a maximum they’ll give back in playground equipment.”
Combining the state grant, current contributions and the grant from the playground equipment company, the town has $500,000 to work with for the new playground, according to West. They are also open to receiving additional grants or contributions. Any funds raised beyond what is necessary for the playground equipment will be used to add flowers and additional landscaping around the site.
Once the new playground is complete, visitors to Kenan Park will notice that some parts of the old playground have been used in the new one.
The old playground included etched bricks, many of which were purchased to honor or memorialize loved ones. It also featured plaques recognizing individuals who donated or sponsored specific pieces of equipment, along with a surrounding picket fence that had names engraved on select pickets. All of these meaningful elements will be integrated into the new playground.
The new playground has been a pet project of West, and she is glad to see it finally becoming a reality. Because of her rising workload as town manager, she has placed the remaining part of the new playground project into the hands of the new Kenansville Parks and Recreation director, Courtney Brown.
“She’s made our park come back to life,” West said of Brown. “Courtney has really taken it and run with it.”
West said she is proud that the park is a big part of the town and clarified that a common misconception is that Kenan Park is a county playground. “It is not. It belongs solely to the town of Kenansville,” she explained.
