Nearly There! Shade Covers To Be Installed By Mid April

The Friends of the Soda Springs City Park are proud to announce that installation of the professionally engineered shade covers on the swing sets at the Maverik Caribou CommUNITY Playground is set to begin on the smaller swing set in a matter of weeks, and the entire project is scheduled for completion by mid April. Area businesses and residents have shown great support for this project in the past couple of weeks.

A special thanks goes out to these companies and people for their generous donations: The Chadwick Foundation ($5,000), Caribou Medical Center ($2,500), Modern Woodmen of America ($2,500), Lion’s Club ($2,000), Jeff and Zan Coonce ($1,000), Ben and Erica Goode ($500), Reid’s Plumbing ($250), Rigby Plumbing ($250), Soda Springs Phosphate ($200), Peter Fillmore ($100), Cobblestone Inn & Suites ($100), Griff and Sonia Davis ($50), and Mark and Jean Lau ($50). 

Erika Dannelly, Director of Development at Caribou Medical Center said the following regarding their $2,500 donation, “We’re super excited to support this project. I know that the hospital helped out a couple of years ago building the playground so we’re excited to keep helping out. My kids play there. We love the playground and we love the park. We love going there and we think it’s going to be really good to have shaded play areas!” Kent Loosle, CEO of CMC also said, “Well, we’re excited to support the Friends of the Soda Springs City Park where supporters of the hospital are also supporters of the city and supporters of the community. Along with donating towards this shade covers project at the playground, we’ve been able to bring new providers and new services to the hospital, and all those things are great for the longterm health of the community.”

As mentioned earlier, the Friends are grateful to announce they received the $2,500 matching grant opportunity from Modern Woodmen of America last month, and they’re still applying for additional grants from various organizations to reach their goal. $45,000 is needed to pay for the shade covers and sponsorship placard, but any additional funds will be used to purchase more shade trees and commercial grade picnic tables which will be installed outside the playground on the East and Northern sides, to provide more areas for families and friends to gather and eat at during the good weather months of the year. 

A committee of local artists has been organized to repair damaged paint throughout the play structures, fixing the wear and tear on the geyser mural under the rock climbing wall, painting new murals on the tee pee hut, and touching up paint on all other areas of the playground that need some TLC. The goal is to complete this work by the time the playground is formally opened for the season, but will be largely dependent on the weather.

If there is signage posted at the playground telling the public to refrain from entering during installation of the shade covers and while maintenance, painting or cleaning is underway, please respect those signs and refrain from using the playground during those times. 

The Friends also received notice from the Soda Springs Police Department that the security cameras at the playground are now actively being monitored by their agency. Please make your teenagers and children aware that vandalism of any kind will be monitored and prosecuted by the police department from now on. This is especially relevant for unsupervised youth. 

A ribbon cutting will take place sometime in May to formally celebrate the new additions of shade covers, trees, picnic tables, recently seal-coated rubber surfacing, outdoor lighting, security cameras, and new artistic murals that have all been introduced since the playgrounds initial dedication. More details will be announced in future articles regarding this endeavor 

If you’d like to donate to this project or to sponsor a tree or picnic table, please reach out to Laura Lind at 208-604-0885.