Eureka, Calif. (KIEM)- This morning the Rotary Club of Old Town held a ceremony at Eureka’s Carson Park to celebrate the beginning phase of the Carson Park improvement project. The project is focused on the building of a new ADA restroom for the park.
The restroom facility that stands in the corner of Carson Park is no longer functional. Rotary Club of Old Town first noticed the facility’s declining condition in 2015 when they held a festival at the park following the annual Rhododendron Parade.
Previous president of Old Town Rotary Club, Jeff Pauli, describes how the project first got started.
“we discovered very quickly that the restrooms at the current Carson Park facility were lacking… and they were in need of lots of repairs. So we set about a fundraising effort in that particular year, and we promised the city that we would raise enough money to build new bathrooms.”
The celebration of phase one comes after years of fundraising and forming community partnerships. Along with neighboring Rotary Clubs, the City of Eureka, College of the Redwoods, and the Strombeck family contributed to the project.
Community Services Director for the City of Eureka, Donna Wood, spoke on the project’s collaborative efforts.
“we have been working in partnership with our local Rotaries to improve Carson Park. We’ve received a lot of feedback over the years about Carson Park needing to be improved and given some love and worked very hard with our local Rotaries to create a master plan for Carson Park,” said Wood. “And today is the unveiling of that master plan and the embarking on phase one.”
College of the Redwoods is also collaborating to make this park improvement project a success. Derek Glavich, professor of construction technology at the university, spoke with us about his involvement in the project.
“Usually the program builds a house every year somewhere in the county, and so this is a pretty good model. so we’re going to build a set of bathrooms from the ground up,” said Glavich. “All student labor, we’ve got probably 30 to 50 students getting their hands on this project.”
The building of a new restroom is not the first improvement project to take place at Carson Park. Rotary Club of Old Town has previously donated items like soccer goals and water fountains to help revitalize the shared community area.
