MURRAY – The Murray Lions Club Community Skate Park has been a popular attraction at Murray’s Central Park for close to a decade, and with so much public use, it is sometimes in need of a little TLC. With spring on the horizon, the Lions say they are committing to organized monthly cleanups to enhance that public service.
The skate park officially opened in October 2012, although discussions and fundraising began years before that. According to Ledger & Times archives, community members first met in July 2003 to discuss the possibility of creating a skate park, and after several public forums, fundraising began ramping up in 2008 and 2009. Chestnut Park had been proposed as a possible location, but the site was established in Central Park in 2012, and Phase 1 of the planning and construction began. The Lions Club presented a $25,000 check to the park board in September 2012, and the park opened less than three weeks later.
The Lions Club made Phase 2 its centennial project in 2017 to recognize the 100th anniversary of Lions Club International’s founding. Part of that expansion involved the installation of a half-pipe ramp, and the park was officially completed in March 2019 with the conclusion of Phase 3 and two more ramps being put in.
Lions Club Vice President Alli Robertson said Club President A.J. Cunha had recently noticed that the skate park could use some attention, and the rest of the Lions agreed to a new commitment to the park’s appearance. The first day for the new cleanup campaign is expected to be in April.
“During the summer months when the skate park gets used more, the Lions Club is going to pick a Saturday each month and go in the morning and just clean up the area,” Robertson said. “It's our skate park, so we should take some pride in it. A.J.’s kids play over there a lot and he was noticing that kids leave a lot of trash. He said ‘We should do something about that,’ so he brought it to the club and, of course, we said OK.
“As with most things we do, there'll be a signup sheet before each one, and I'm sure we'll have some sort of committee or (club member) to take point on it, and that way, we’ll ensure that it happens monthly like it’s supposed to. Because if you don't have somebody to take point, people get busy and life happens.”
Cunha has four children, 17-year-old Trevor, 16-year-old Grace, 12-year-old Miles and 8-year-old Sunny. He said they come to the skate park regularly, especially the youngest.
“Three of the kids use the skate park, but the main one that uses it is Sunny,” Cunha said. “She's got her skateboard and all of her safety equipment, and she goes out there pretty often. She loves it, and my wife, Natalie, was a big skater growing up. The city does a great job with keeping the park up; it’s just that there’s extra usage in the spring and the summer. You have a lot of kids that come, and so you start to see a lot of debris (in the summer) around the fence line and underneath the jumps . We just want to make sure that if it's the first time someone's going to that park or if they're coming for a baseball tournament, that it's clean, it's presentable and it looks nice.
“We’re looking at late April for our first cleanup, and then we’re going to make it a monthly project until probably October. Now that we have a Leo Club, which is the high school Lions Club, they're going to help us get that done.”
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