MV City Park gets a facelift through ‘Keep Iowa Beautiful’ grant
by Greg Forbes, Reporter
For the Harrison County Times-Reporter
The Missouri Valley city park recently received a facelift to its parking lot thanks to a community-wide effort. Recently, large cement blocks were painted and placed in the parking lot as parking stops. The project was fueled by a Keep Iowa Beautiful grant, which helped fund the paint used.
Aneitah Garmann, Missouri Valley Parks Board President, said the project came to fruition thanks to contributions from many areas throughout the community. Jeannie Wortman, Missouri Valley Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, originally presented the idea to apply for a grant to fund several improvement projects at the park.
Once the park board settled on the parking post project, Garmann said Public Works Director Rich Gochenhour donated the blocks and the city parks department removed the old posts and moved the cement blocks in place. Parks board member Gary Haight then painted the blocks using the paint sponsored by Diamond Vogel.
Now, with the blocks painted and the old posts removed, Garmann said the parking lot is more visually appealing, which aligns with the spirit of the Keep Iowa Beautiful grant.
“The aesthetics of the park with (the old) posts just wasn’t appealing,” she said. “With the blocks, everything is uniform and looks a lot better.”
Gochenhour said the cement blocks were leftover concrete and with no viable option to dispose of it, the best option was to find new purposes and the parking lot project fit that goal perfectly.
“The old poles have been there since I was a kid, so we needed a change,” he said. “The concrete blocks won’t rot, they won’t move. We’re trying to take a step in the right direction to make the park nicer with what we have.”
Gochenhour added that blocks have also been placed at the fairgrounds and camping areas as well. Haight, who joined the park board to help make a difference in Missouri Valley, said he’s thrilled at the community’s response to the project.
That team effort, he said, shows an investment to bring improvements to Missouri Valley.
“We’re trying to involve the community to get the parks looking more beautiful so people want to be there and appreciate what we have here,” he said.
