The Kiwanis Bacon Memorial Park expansion is complete after almost a decade of planning and community support. Now it is time to pay the last of the $246,000 bill.
The second phase of all-inclusive playground construction wrapped up the last weekend of September, enabling kids of all abilities to play together. The new, accessible equipment includes swings, a merry-go-round and the centerpiece, a rocking, wheelchair-friendly pirate ship.
“The reason we built that place is for the pirate ship. There’s equipment all over for the kids on two feet,” said Kiwanis member Kenny Rowland. The Commerce Bank president explained the rocking ship provides locomotion that wheelchair users can feel, which is rare for playgrounds.
Steve Whitworth credited former member Subrina Berger for envisioning the playground. Berger, a Sacred Heart teacher, noticed Poplar Bluff’s lack of inclusive playgrounds after adopting a child with disabilities.
“Our club jumped right onto the project and stayed with it even though she had to leave the club due to career reasons,” Whitworth remarked, noting she also got the project’s first grant and organized the club’s most successful fundraiser.
The Kiwanis Club’s dream is now up and running — or spinning, in the case of the merry-go-round — and now it is footing the bill. The club moved forward with the park despite incomplete funding for two reasons: first, so nearby Poplar Bluff Middle School could utilize the playground before winter, and second, because experience showed construction would only get more expensive.
“When we started this project the whole playground quote was around $75,000. The club enthusiastically started additional fundraisers to meet this amount and when we got there in 4 years or so the project cost had ballooned to approximately $150,000,” Rowland explained in an email.
Kiwanis divided the project into two phases to make it more manageable, but the cost of each phase crept upward. “By the time we got it (the first phase) installed the first half cost $80,000. We continued to fundraise and scrape and when we got close to the remaining amount for the other half of the playground we realized the goalposts had moved again — this time to $110,000.”
The pandemic made fundraising difficult, but generous local benefactors got the club to the final $110,000. Kiwanis then learned the price tag had risen yet again to $160,000.
“We launched our final ambitious drive for $50,000 this winter with a contingency plan to store the equipment (half of the project cost) until we could afford the installation, concrete and rubber safety mat,” Rowland wrote. “That $50,000 has been the hardest to raise so far and even though we were still short of the whole cost, the club decided to start installing. Now that we’re done with the $166,000 project, it’s time to pay the bills.”
For the last 10 years, minus charity fundraisers and scholarships, Rowland estimated at least 75% of the money raised by Kiwanis has gone to this park. To complete it, Kiwanis cleared out its general account, project account and capital improvements fund and is currently trying to recuperate. Donations have already moved the club from $50,000 in the hole to just under $16,000.
“We are expected to be $6,000 short if we receive the outstanding pledges we have towards the playground,” Rowland said.
Kiwanis hoped its first golf classic, which was held Friday, could raise up to $5,000 of the remainder. Totals will not be known until Monday, Oct. 16.
Rowland said the club’s many partners, including the Poplar Bluff School District, the city parks & recreation department, county and municipal utilities, and private individuals, are what make Kiwanis Bacon Memorial Park possible.
“We don’t do this without all of them,” he said.
Despite the project’s long, hard road, Rowland reported the club is elated to see the finished product. His Kiwanis group chat has been blowing up with photos since the weekend, many featuring children using the playground to its fullest.
“It makes me pretty happy to see the completion,” he said.
“Let me tell you, we are very excited and very proud,” Whitworth added later.
Those wishing to support the Poplar Bluff Kiwanis Club can make checks out to Poplar Bluff Kiwanis and drop them off at Ressie Thomas Law, the Margaret Harwell Art Museum or Whitworth’s Gift Chest Jewelers. The can also be mailed to Poplar Bluff Kiwanis, Inc. P.O. Box 1103, Poplar Bluff, MO 63901.