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The healing power of a local park
Bowling Green, Kentucky, is a vibrant and growing community located in the southern part of the Bluegrass state. It is the third largest city in Kentucky and is currently the fastest growing, projected to reach nearly 100,000 residents by the year 2030. Those of us tasked with serving our community recognize the need to preserve our natural areas as the city grows so that we can continue to bring beneficial and impactful park and recreation opportunities to those who call Bowling Green home.
In January 2021, myself and a team of colleagues from multiple city departments were introduced to a new section of greenway while helping plan an event to signify its grand opening. We fell in love with the natural beauty of the small area and could imagine the possibilities and impact the space could have as a new park. In addition, community members in this particular area were positioned to benefit greatly from a new park and positive investment. Located adjacent to the greenway are two schools, as well as a multitude of subdivisions and multifamily housing units. Jennings Creek Elementary, one of the neighboring schools, is one of the most diverse in the state of Kentucky. According to its principal, Dr. Cody Rich, “We serve a student population [that more than] 90 percent [receive] free/reduced [price] lunch. We also have students from over 30 countries who speak more than 30 languages (not including dialects). We serve a relatively small geographic area but it is very densely populated. Additionally, we have many students who are refugees from numerous countries.”
Karissa Lemon, metropolitan planning organization coordinator for the City-County Planning Commission, and I began developing a vision for what this potential park could be; an escape from our growing city that encouraged our community to connect, explore and play with nature in the middle of an increasingly urban area.
Disaster Strikes
Although the vision sat on our desks for most of the year, that all changed on the morning of December 11, 2021. Our community was struck with multiple tornadoes, including an EF3 that cut through the neighborhood adjacent to the greenway, tearing through a portion of the trail while crossing neighborhoods. There was loss of life, hundreds injured and even more people displaced. The elementary school became the main shelter for the Red Cross and other local response teams. I remember walking into the shelter for the first time seeing the hurt, trauma and disbelief on everyone’s faces. The community we love was changed forever.
In light of this natural disaster, our dream for a park along Jennings Creek now had an additional, more immediate purpose. How could this park project be a part of our response to the storms and help restore hope to our community?
Together as One
The strength of our community was evident in the ways people, organizations and businesses helped their neighbors, and the story of our project has been a shining example of just this. In spring 2022, our local Rotary Clubs reached out with the opportunity to use Regional Disaster Relief grant funding for creek restoration and remediation, as well as laying the foundation for an outdoor classroom for the adjacent elementary school. Another partner, Western Kentucky University’s Center for Human GeoEnvironmental Studies, also received similar grant money from another local Rotary Club that brought our total project funding to $40,000, and progress could now begin on the new park.
Local construction company Scotty’s Contracting and Stone proved the generosity of our community as they performed the work of creating this new space at no cost to the city. They helped create a new creek access point where local response teams had to dam the creek for recovery purposes, as well as an outdoor classroom and educational play area. In addition, local businesses and organizations partnered with Operation Pride Inc., a local nonprofit focused on beautification of our community, to help restore the tree canopy damaged by the storms. Many of the newly planted trees were funded by local companies like International Paper and Tennessee Valley Authority.
A Community Dreams
As part of what we like to call the “Dream Phase” in bringing new parks to our city, we hosted a community event, inviting families to share with us what they wanted to see in this all-new playscape and park. The event gave us the opportunity to engage with our community and allowed users to see how they could enjoy the new space we were creating.
National design firm MKSK is bringing the vision for the playscape to life and working on an overall master plan for the Creekwood Greenway at Jennings Creek, guiding our development of this new park. The master plan includes a boardwalk trail that wanders off the main greenway trail over a natural wetland adjacent to a portion of Jennings Creek. The boardwalk trail will be in the direct path the tornado took through the neighborhoods and over this new park we are now creating. To commemorate and represent the lives lost in the storms, our project team is envisioning an art installation along the greenway and boardwalk trail.
United Way of Southern Kentucky was one of the many organizations that was instrumental in helping our community recover. According to Debbie Hills, president and CEO of United Way of Southern Kentucky, “When the devastating tornado hit our community in December 2021, United Way of Southern Kentucky immediately leaped into action. With the launch of the United Way of Southern Kentucky Disaster Recovery Fund the morning after the tornado, resources began to be secured for the massive work that lay ahead. From the beginning, we had one goal…to help restore our community and to work with the victims of the disaster to return them to a place that was as good as, if not better than, before. Our road to recovery took more than two years…but in the end that goal was achieved.”
In the spring of 2023, the project team was connected with United Way of Southern Kentucky. The organization was looking to invest tornado recovery funds they had helped to raise in response to the storms and helping us create a place of peace and happiness in this new park was the perfect fit. “Through our partnership with the city of Bowling Green in the tornado recovery work, we were able to connect with representatives from parks and rec, public works and the Bowling Green-Warren County Planning Organization to discuss an idea they had for a greenway/natural playscape behind Jennings Creek Elementary. One walk along the beautiful path and understanding the vision of what was to come and we knew this was a perfect investment to accomplish our goals and to change the landscape of the neighborhood,” says Hills.
As of today, United Way of Southern Kentucky has invested a total of $493,500 in the Jennings Creek Park project, specifically to help create the natural playscape and United Way-born learning trail as part of our team’s vision for the space. The new playscape is slated to be completed in the fall of 2024.
As the three-year anniversary of the tornadoes that changed our community approaches, a dream is coming to life. This project has become a true representation of just how unified, resilient and strong Bowling Green and Warren County, Kentucky, is. As park and recreation professionals, we recognize the powerful ways in which the work we do impacts and enhances quality of life for the communities we serve. However, this project has taught me more than I imagined about the ways in which parks and recreation can be a refuge in light of life’s hardest moments and bring hope to a community in need of healing. In the decades to come, it is our hope that the new Jennings Creek Park along the Creekwood Greenway provides a ray of light through the darkness that remains, helping bring smiles to the faces of all who play here and ensure they are able to make positive memories that last a lifetime in the park.
On land once ravaged and torn, new memories are being made, beauty has bloomed from the destruction, and a park has been born.
Cameron Levis, CPRE, AFO, is Recreation Division Manager, Parks and Recreation at City of Bowling Green (Kentucky).