Chambers County Grant Celebration and Pocket Park Ribbon Cutting

BY KADIE TAYLOR

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

LAFAYETTE — The Coosa Valley Resource Conservation and Development Council held a Chambers County Grant Celebration at the Spot on the Square Pocket Park and a Spot on the Square Ribbon Cutting on Oct. 27.

LaFayette Mayor Kenneth Vines welcomed guests and locals to LaFayette and thanked everyone for taking the time to attend the Chambers County Grant Celebration and Pocket Park Ribbon Cutting.

“Welcome to the city of LaFayette if this is your first time here — just stay around and shop,” he said. “Mr. Howard, thank you so much for letting us use your venue this afternoon. This time last year, year before last you came by, that's what it was, just a spot. He took time [from his] busy schedule and opened this venue for the city of LaFayette. Again, Mr. Howard, you could have chosen somewhere else to go. Thank you so much — on behalf of myself and my entire council.”

Vines shared that the city of LaFayette was awarded a $11,298 grant to be used on updating the original city park with new playground equipment.

“This money will be used for our park, Old City Park, as we say — we don't officially have a name for it, and it'll be used for playground equipment,” he said. “To each and everyone that involved in this process, thank you so much. I promise you once we receive this equipment, it will be some good news.”

Sandra Thorton, director of the Lanett Senior Center, said the Center received a $10,000 grant to be used in its reading nook and a $15,000 grant to go towards its computer lab and classrooms.

“Now, everything requires that you go on a computer — so this is a great opportunity for classes, for the seniors to get on the computers and play games,” she said. “You have to enroll in Social Security, Medicaid or whatever. And then we're going to offer this computer lab also to our community, where we're going to provide English classes. So this is absolutely great.”

Wally Berry, board member and volunteer for the Oak Bowery Fire and Rescue shared the Station received a $5,000 grant which was used to install pumps on the new water tank to make it operational, allowing for quicker response to fires.

“You cannot know how life changing this is, and what a change this is for our department and for the area,” he said. “Besides helping protect life and property, what a lot of people don't realize is, as our fire department improves, we get a better what's called an ISO rating. What difference does that make to us? It means that [for] everybody in our district homeowners insurance goes down as our ISO rating improves. So this has repercussions that go way out.”

Seath Harden, the marketing coordinator for THYNK Innovation — which is run by The Circle of Care for Families — announced the $5,000 grant received will be used to purchase high-quality equipment for the THYNK Podcast Room.

“It's actually going to add a layer of professionalism to the businesses that we're helping,” he said. “Because not only is it a podcast studio, but it's also an area where these businesses can come in and they can actually shoot commercials inside of the podcast studio. They can shoot social media content inside of the podcast studio, they can voice their opinion and let the public know who they are and what they stand for. As we continue to help those businesses grow, we just want to say thank you.”

DeAnna Hand, executive director of LaFayette Main Street, shared how a $12,715 grant was used to transform the vacant property that is now the Spot on the Square Pocket Park to host local services and events.

“It was just a dream of all of ours at LaFayette Main Street, to really turn this in to a special third space, a place that people could come and they could gather for different events, different programming, for wonderful occasions and bring the community together and let them enjoy the Pocket Park,” she said. “Through the funding and through some grants that we prepared, we were able to utilize and get funding. We asked David Howard — who is very special in our town of LaFayette who owns this property — if we could work together in partnership and create a Memorandum of Understanding for the use of programming this space out and making it to what you see today.”

Sen. Randy Price reflected on the impact that funding has on Chambers County, and how through funding community development endeavors citizens who are positively impacted.

“I think that is one of the most important things that [Coosa Valley] RC&D [does], as far as us learning about these projects, how they affect you and how they affect [the community] — just like as far as the water [at Oak Bowery Fire and Rescue] and how you get those trucks filled,” he said. “Those are just small things that we in the legislature — sometimes, maybe we don't realize, but we're glad we're able to fund those projects to where we can help our communities.”

With the Pocket Park having already been used for community events, Hand said she has already seen an impact in the ability to bring locals together for fun and education.

“We did a library day with the Chambers County Library System, and it was called ‘Library at the Spot on the Square,’ and they came and read ‘Pete the Cat’ to a lot of their young children who are involved in their home school program,” she said. “We look forward to working with the Chambers County Extension Service and doing some 4-H projects here, also some shop after hours or some networking events. So we're really looking to program this out to serve different organizations, different communities and bring us all together. So we're really excited about it.”

David Howard who owns the Pocket Park space and partnered with LaFayette Main Street to renovate and share the park with the community, reflected on his love for LaFayette and desire to see this park bring the community together.

“I just want to say thank you to RC&D and LaFayette Main Street for helping see my vision,” he said. “I grew up in LaFayette — I've been here for 49 years. We've seen it through its ups and downs, we're excited to see the progress that's going on in LaFayette and we hope that more people will jump on board and support us.”