Kelly Sutherland says she struggles to explain what she does as Grove City’s parks and recreation superintendent.
“There’s so much that we do,” she says.
The department is involved in a huge number of city activities, so even the most involved Grove City resident might not know all that Sutherland and her team have played a part in creating.
As the department celebrates National Parks and Recreation Month in July, its leaders reflect on the department’s growth over the last 30 years.
Since the city established a Parks and Recreation Department with a director and staff in 1973 replacing the parks department set up in 1966 under the guidance of a park board, it has grown in terms of staff, programming, facilities and operations, says Kim Conrad, director of the Grove City Parks and Recreation Department, who has been with the department since the 1980s.
Not only does it interact with many local government departments and programs, it offers something for everyone.
“We do everything from, I want to say, from cradle to grave with people in our community,” Conrad says.
That includes numerous events offered year round, preschool programming, youth and adult sports, more than 125 different courses every two months (which you can find in The Source section of any Discover Grove City magazine), and socialization activities for older adults.
In addition, it provides a helping hand to several other organizations such as with LifeCare Alliance to serve hot meals at the Evans Center, American Red Cross to conduct blood drives on a monthly basis, Heart of Grove City for its special events in the historic town center and programming with the Southwest Franklin County Historical Society.
In the early years, the department had a few programmers, a director and several support staff, operating out of the old municipal building on Park Street, where the police station now sits. Staff relocated several times including to locations such as the historic farmhouse at Gantz Park and City Hall before settling in its current home at the Kingston Center in 2016.
The department has grown and enhanced its programming.
“When the Big Splash opened (in 1999), we were able to grow that program and that’s become a much bigger summertime program,” Conrad says.
The department has its finger on the pulse of what attracts visitors and residents. Department staff constantly assess new and existing programs to determine if one needs to be added, replaced or removed altogether.
In the early years, for instance, Conrad says the department used to offer an arts academy but shelved it years ago. The department could always bring it back at a later time, she adds.
“We tried to look at what the national trends are,” Conrad says. “A great example is that back in the mid-2000s, skate parks were all the rage. And so, we ended up building a skate park back in 2007 and we offered skating lessons or skateboarding lessons for quite a while. … There’s still a lot of interest in those facilities.”
The department’s analysis of recreational trends along with community input led it to add pickleball courts, giving community members of all ages the space to play the sport. You can read more about Grove City’s pickleball enthusiasm here.
Aside from new sports, parks and recreation helped boost a longtime recreational activity in Grove City: Youth baseball has a long history in the community, well before a parks department was founded. Grove City’s affiliation with Little League launched in 1950 with hundreds of youth participating over the years. Although the city owned and maintained Windsor Park, home of the youth baseball diamonds, the department did not take over the youth baseball program until 1998. By that time, the affiliation with Little League had lapsed. In 2013, Grove City again established a connection with Little League, Sutherland says.
The department has several projects on deck including development of the 30-acre green space reserved for a park in the Beulah Park development, the space in the Town Center formerly occupied by the Grove City Library, and development of the 34-acre Pinnacle Area Park located near the intersection of Holton and Hoover roads including trails, a play area and shelters. No matter what style of recreation you love, Grove City Parks and Recreation has something for you – or will very soon.
“We’ve got a lot on the horizon,” Conrad says.
Brandon Klein is the editor. Feedback welcome at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com.
