Drew Aggus
Special to the Citizen
The City of Parkville received $25,000 courtesy of Royals Charities and Price Chopper to fix up Grigsby Field at English Landing Park.
The donation comes just months after devastating floods wiped out the work that Engaged Companies had been doing to fix up the park.
The company had just completed $18,000 worth of work, finishing just two days before the floodwaters hit back in March.
At its peak, the water was eight feet high on Grigsby Field.After receiving a grant from FEMA, the donation from Royals Charities and Price Chopper should get the park to be even better than it was before the floods, according to Alysen Abel, Parkville’s public works director.“
“The extra $25,000 from the Royals — that’s going to be able to get us up to that next level,” Abel said. “It’s a game changer for us.
“The current plan is to use the $25,000 on new dugouts and a new bullpen in the park, as well as to upgrade and improve the scoreboard.”
The fences around Grigsby Field have already been redone, along with many of the park’s trails, and the city is also working on disinfecting the park’s playground and replacing the mulch and the netting around the ballparks.
The floods this year threatened downtown Parkville, as they were some of the highest waters ever recorded on the Missouri River.
Since the park has already flooded multiple times in the last few years, Abel said that the city is focusing on long-term solutions with the park this time around.
“It is a riverfront park, and it is in the floodplain, and that’s where a lot of your parks want to be and need to be,” Abel said. “There’s really no other use for riverfront areas, and it’s a beautiful park, so we are strategically looking at long-term improvements. It’s one of those things that we do have to deal with being a riverfront community.
”Smaller communities, such as Parkville, which has about 7,000 to 9,000 residents, rely on community partners like Royals Charities and Price Chopper. Royals Charities is a foundation that was started in 2001 by the Glass family.
They provide scholarships to students, fix up ballparks and support military families and the community in various ways.
Price Chopper is Royals Charities’ community partner.
The two organizations do many tasks together. Casie Broker, Price Chopper’s chief marketing officer, said that the company is grateful to the community and excited to have the opportunity to give back.“Being with Royals Charities allows us to do some really cool projects, such as this one, where we’re able to step into a community that we’ve been a part of for so long and really help with things like this field renovation,” Broker said.
“We are so grateful to be a part of this community and we are so grateful for their support over the years. It’s just really an honor to be able to give back and support them when they need it,”Amanda Grosdidier, the director of Royals Charities, said that the Royalty Fields program provides means for renovating baseball fields in a six-state area, and in recent years, they have donated over $2.3 million to 175 fields. “When we saw on the news all of the flooding and the devastation in the area, we came out to see the field,” Grosdidier said.
“As soon as we saw the marks on the shed of where the flooding was, we instantly wanted to get involved. From the top down, everyone in our team wants to get involved – not just getting kids to play but having them on safe, beautiful fields.
”Parkville plans to host an event in the spring of 2020 to unveil the improvements made to the park.”
English Landing Park has reopened to visitors, but only during daylight hours.
Due to continuing work in the park, electrical service has not been restored so restroom facilities remain closed. In Platte Landing Park, the popular dog parks are still closed.
Fence repairs are ongoing, and Abel said at a recent meeting of the board of aldermen that the dog parks may not fully reopen until spring when grass cover is restored.
The canine playground equipment installed by Girl Scouts a few years ago was washed away, and mayor Nan Johnston said she had been contacted by one of those —now grown — scouts interested in re-installing new obstacles.