Upgrades at a Petrolia Park are nearly complete.
Kerr Park now features new curbing, updated drainage tile, and a replacement slide, thanks to the Lambton Central Petrolia Optimist Club. A new fall zone surfacing is currently being installed.
Optimist member and project chair Carol Watt said the large playground set certainly needed some improvements, and that the new equipment will have a lasting impact.
"It's going to be there for quite while. The set that was there, it had been there for a significant amount of time -- I want to say 1985 -- so this replacement will refresh it for another significant amount of time."
Watt said the entire community stepped up to help raise the roughly $10,000 needed to complete the project.
"It is a community effort because we did a bottle drive for the project and we made over $1,000 so that could go towards the cost of the curbing."
SofSurfaces in Petrolia is donating all of their time and material towards the project.
Watt said the optimist club is all about supporting the youth in the community.
"This is a way to keep the kids active, having fun in an outdoor setting, especially in the time of COVID that they can go enjoy themselves and be exercising without knowing it."
During the upgrades, the equipment will be temporarily unavailable, so residents are asked to enjoy the playground at the Petrolia YMCA or elsewhere.
Watt said work on the park began August 11.
Upgrades to the equipment at Kerr Park. 10 September 2021. (Photo by the Lambton Central Petrolia Optimist Club)
