Perhaps it is fitting that what led to the creation of a city department whose business includes organizing games, hanging holiday lights and planting flowers was actually the community’s hardship. In the late 1930s, Lawrence, like the rest of the country, was still in the midst of the Great Depression, and while the adults worked longer hours and dealt with the struggles of the time, the activities that once entertained the children had become scarce. “All of these organized activities that would have occupied young people, scouting trips, outings and hikes, they weren’t happening as much,” said Watkins Museum of History Curator and Collections manager Brittany Keegan. “So what the city started noticing was groups of kids around without an activity.” The city was planned with central and neighborhood parks from its beginning, but Keegan said it was in the context of the depression that a volunteer council started the recreational component of what would eventually become the Parks and Recreation Department we know today.
Source: LJWorld.com.

When it rains in the small, rural town of Paxico — which sits about 30 miles west of Topeka, just off Interstate 70 — pools of water remain long after each storm has passed. “We have terrible stormwater runoff,” said resident Deanna Pierson. “We’re in a flood zone.” Pierson, with help from an international organization that works with communities to address climate-related issues, published a survey late last year in The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise to collect responses from area residents about local problems they thought needed to be addressed…. But until recently, efforts to reduce such risk were stagnant — that is until Pierson connected with Thriving Earth Exchange, a program that aims to help communities of all sizes tackle local issues related to natural hazards and resources. And Paxico just so happens to be the smallest community with which the earth exchange has ever worked. The Thriving Earth Exchange partnership is one of two different projects Paxico is undertaking to address water-related issues in the northeast Kansas town of about 280 people. The other is an effort to connect the town to a rural water district in order to rid it of well water contaminated with nitrates, which recently led local officials to issue a drinking-water advisory for infants, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
Source: CJonline.com.