Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

VALLEY — At 10 a.m. on Saturday, Valley Parks & Recreation Director Laurie Blount cut the ribbon to officially open the Shawmut Airport Playground. It’s a super-nice place for youngsters in the 5-12 age group. Local parents and grandparents with boys and girls in that age group should take them there. They will love you for it.

There’s a nearby picnic area under some shade trees. It’s a comfortable area where adults can wait as youngsters expend tons of energy climbing, swinging and sliding down the fun stations on the playground. The site is sheltered from the sun and there’s spongy surface to protect them should they take a fall.

“I am so excited this day us finally here,” said Blount, speaking to a crowd gathered for a ribbon cutting hosted by the Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce. “We started planning for this in 2019, but Covid shut us down for a couple of years. The city did come through with a matching grant, and it allowed us to have this. Mayor Riley and the Public Works Department have been so helping in getting us to where we are today.”

Blount also cited the East Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission, Anniston, for their help in making the playground a reality.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Mayor Riley. “The grant that made this possible had to be rewritten six or seven times. I want to thank Laurie for the work she did in making this day happen. She really worked hard on this project.”

A matching grant of approximately $175,000 was arranged for the project was through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA).

Such projects are possible through the Land & Water Conservation Fund, a service provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior since 1965.

“We matched it and we put in the sidewalk and an access road,” Riley said. “This is your park, and it’s free to use by your children and grandchildren. It’s free, and it’s a safe place to be. You just need to be here with your kids and your grandkids and enjoy it.”

Riley said that more parks are in the planning stages in Valley.

A major development is planned for the Fairfax Mill site, and another one is being looked at for River View. Georgia Power could be involved in that.

Riley  said that these are good times for the city.

“We have four new subdivisions being built,” he said. “We want our city to continue growing.”

One of the largest subdivisions could be between the airport site and EAMC-Lanier Hospital.

“We won’t be building on the river, except for a possible walking trail,” Riley said. “We want our citizens to use our parks and other public areas and to help take care of them.”

Blount said the new children’s playground is AWDA compliant – it can be used by those with disabilities.

Some children were playing on the new rides while the ribbon cutting was taking place. Among them were four-year-old Evelyn Olko and three-year-old Eli Olko, children of Joseph and Emily Olko of Valley.

In the parks’ nearby dog park section, Tori Mezick was having a lot of fun running her red-nosed pit bull named Rabban.

The doing park area is fully enclosed behind fencing and has separate areas for big dogs and small dogs.