A $90,000 donation will build at least one cabin at Camp Hawk and greatly upgrade playground equipment at West Park.
The Harvey County Parks Department recently announced the donation from the R. Michael Rhoades Foundation, which aims to encourage the use of the outdoors by young people as well as the greater public.
“We were going to get these projects done regardless, but this will allow us to make them high quality,” Parks Director Kass Miller said. “I think we’re real real fortunate that they’ve decided to help Harvey County and park systems.”
For context, it would take around 0.3 mills of taxes to generate $90,000 for the parks system.
Miller said the county plans to install a 400- to 500-square-foot cabin at the park. As the county recently demolished the house that stood at the park, infrastructure for water and electric hookups already exist.
“It will be a real simple plug-in situation,” Miller said. “The Camp Hawk shelter is our most rented shelter. We do a lot of weddings out there. We saw that there is a need for wedding parties looking to rent. It’s also for people who want to stay out but not camp but get away from the house.”
He said while the county planned to build some sort of shelter out at the park, it can now upgrade the shelter’s furnishings and put siding on the structure to make it look like a log cabin.
(Read more: Newton Now)