By FULLER ROYAL

After the wheelbarrows, ladders, sawhorses and power cords had been cleared late Sunday evening, more than 100 volunteers saw the fruits of their labor – the new Chadbourn park and playground.

A project more than one year in the making at a cost of more than $100,000 and thousands of hours of labor, it stood ready for scores of youngsters eager for a “test-drive.”

At 6 p.m., the chief organizer of the project, Peg Kinlaw, thanked the volunteers as well as the 100 or so guests who had arrived for the ribbon cutting.

“This is not my park,” she said. “It’s not the Chadbourn Downtown Development Commission’s park. It’s the town’s park.

“All kinds of people of different colors and ages have worked on this,” she said. “We should be proud of ourselves.”

With that, she handed scissors to several of the Chadbourn Elementary School students who helped design the park. Once they cut the ribbon, a flood of youngsters entered the park to climb the bridges and towers of the central equipment.

One resident likened it to kids entering Disneyland for the first time.
Clearly, the volunteers were excited about the park.

“I enjoyed working on this,” said Donald Nealy. “It was great just to see the way everybody was working together. To see these youngins out here working was real impressive.”

West Columbus High School junior Brian Edwards, working with his father on the project, said the sense of community is what struck him the most.

“It was good to see people from Chadbourn coming out here to do something good for Chadbourn,” he said.

“This is what community is all about,” said Nathan Moore. “This is breaking down the walls. It’s not about rich and poor.”

Jonathan Rose, 14, took a break from helping spread more than two feet of wood chips.

“I have enjoyed helping,” he said, rake in hand. “It’s been fun. I’ve shoveled rocks and wood chips and I’ve done a lot of raking. I’m too old to use the park but I wanted to help build this for the little kids.”

Colin Shaw, 12, has been helping all week. His parents, Michael and Lisa Shaw, have been heavily involved with the project.

“It’s been fun,” he said, not having much time to talk.

“It’s remarkable,” said Anita Powell, as she held a board in place. The community is to be commended. Children of all ages and the elderly have come out here and done what they can. It’s good to see so many people work together for a community goal. I have never seen anything like this before.”

Kathy Blake agreed that it was impressive to see the community become involved. She said that the students at Chadbourn Elementary played a big part in the design.

“The riding bull was a student’s idea,” she said.

“It’s great to know that a lot of kids will enjoy this,” said 10-year-old Emily Best, who has spent her shifts hauling woodchips and painting.

“This has been an amazing journey,” said volunteer Jennifer Ezzell. “It’s been a fantastic community project. It’s such a wonderful end product.”

“I think this is going to be alright,” said Wilfred Rorie as he and friend John Lawrence sat for a spell in the mini-amphitheater. “This is something for the children to have and to stay out of trouble. It’s constructive.”

“I’m the oldest thing in the park,” laughed Lawrence, 71. “It’s gotta be good to work me like this. I’ve had such a good time. This is the first team I have been on in a long time and we have been good together. They were glad to see me come back.”

Kenny Lee said that in the 18 years he has worked around and in Chadbourn, this is the first time he has ever seen the community come together like this for a project.

“It’s been great having the town come together,” he said.

“I believe this is the nicest park in Columbus County,” said former Columbus County Sheriff Jimmy Ferguson. “ I couldn’t believe the people who showed up here the last few days. This was a lot of hard people and I never thought all of these people would show up.”

Ferguson said he had never seen anything like this.

“Peg took on a big responsibility. I can’t imagine how much time she has put into this. She did an excellent job.”

Former Chadbourn Town Manager David Bone was on hand supplying his own elbow grease.

“This has inspired a lot of people,” he said. “This is a tremendous asset to the community.”

Bone said that the momentum created by the project’s leaderships could lead to the successful initiation and completion of other projects.

‘They will do more in the future,” he said.

“A lot of the volunteers have been the same people,” Kinlaw said. “Once they came out they were addicted.”

Kinlaw worked 16-hour days all week, as had many of the other organizers.

She said there are still several parts of the project unfinished. Two sections of fence still need to be installed and a swing was missing some key parts.

Early Monday morning, the two Leathers & Associates engineers – Mike Thomas and Lee Archin – will conduct a 90-minute safety inspection. Both are nationally certified playground inspectors.

They will make a “punch list” for Kinlaw and her teams, making sure that all of the edges are routed and boards and chains are secured.

The park will not officially open until the items on the punch list have been taken care of.

The pavilion, benches and picnic tables still need to be built. And there is still paving and landscaping in the courtyard to complete, including the installation of donated pavers and signage acknowledging the other donors.

As Kinlaw watched the youngsters scrambling over the playground before losing their daylight, she was asked if there would be a dedication day of some sort.

“That will be for someone else to do,” she said. “My part is done. I just wanted to see it built.”