By Julie Rossman
Correspondent
After a year-and-a-half of construction and hundreds of hours of volunteer time, the new brick concession building at Union Grove’s School Yard Park is open for business.
“It takes a whole community to make this happen,” said Village President Mike Aimone at the official dedication of the building on Saturday.
Aimone was quick to recognize the generous donations of money, supplies and labor that made the new structure possible. The Union Grove Kiwanis club donated $65,000, while the Kansasville VFW Post 7924 pitched in $10,000 to make the new addition to the park a reality.
Bricklayer Todd Kasprowicz volunteered about 300 of his time and expertise and also organized the volunteer workers, who constructed the building on weekends since the fall of 2010.
Aimone himself helped in the volunteer effort and said he has enjoyed the new friendships he made as a result. “It was lots of fun,” he said.
After much deliberation about how to best use the property of the former Union Grove Elementary School, the Village of Union Grove came to an agreement with the school to buy it and keep it as green space.
“We were fortunate to buy six acres at a reasonable price,” said Aimone during the dedication ceremony.
The first phase of the park came with a $12,000 grant from Kellogg’s, which the village received as a result of an online voting effort. The money was used to upgrade the schoolyard’s existing baseball diamonds.
After the old school was demolished, a parking lot was added. The pavilion idea came about at a Kiwanis meeting and involved a drawing on a placemat. After it was suggested the park needed a pavilion, Kasprowicz suggested it should be brick and should include bathrooms. He sketched his idea on a placemat and it went from there.
Kasprowicz worked with the donated bricks, which came in a number of different colors. He laid out different designs to see what would work together. “I didn’t want it to be an eyesore,” Kasprowicz said.
He was even able to make the letters “UG” in red brick on the west side of the building, at the suggestion of community member Jeff Lois.
Kasprowicz, who recently moved with his family from Union Grove to Raleigh, North Carolina, is pleased with the new addition to the park. “It’s something good for the community. I’m pretty proud of the way it turned out,” he said.
Aimone also recognized the new flagpole that stands high above the building as well as the new sign, which arrived just before the dedication. It was donated by the Polnasek family in memory of Bill Polnasek.
Though Aimone is extremely pleased with School Yard Park, he says the village still has more ideas for the future.
“Imagine sitting here and listening to music coming from a band shell,” he said to the crowd. He explained the village has a vision of a bandshell in the southwest corner of the park where the community could hear live musical performances.
“There’s lots of donation opportunities here,” he said with a chuckle. He’d love to see some park benches around the park, for example.
“This truly will become a community owned park,” he said.
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