One of the key pieces of the Village Green park is reaching completion. The former Navy housing site, totaling 2.5 of the total 15 acres of the Village Green project, has been cleared, leveled, piped and seeded, all using donated and volunteer labor plus county materials. Project leader David Wetter said the grass needs to be mature enough to receive two or three mowings before the area can be opened to the public, but hopes the current weather will allow that to happen before the end of July.

Getting the site ready was a large task for a volunteer workforce. First the dense photinia shrubs along the sidewalk had to be taken out, the the asphalt aprons along the interior road had to be cut and removed, the site had to be graded and 1,035 cubic yards of topsoil added and raked smooth. While that preparation was going on, Mary Lou Iverson and Sonny Woodward supervised the removal of old wood fibers from the playground, then washed and repaired the playground equipment, and finished up by painting metal parts that were exposed.

Once the site was level, Rich Gaines from Sunset Electric brought in his combination trencher to make trenches for a sophisticated, industrial-grade irrigation system. When Wetter, Lanning and other volunteers finished hooking up pipe and tested the system, Gaines returned to backfill the trenches.

Wetter and co-leader Rick Lanning have put in a tremendous amount of hours not only in planning the project but also in negotiating with county officials to make the project go, according to Village Green Foundation’s Executive Director Bobbie Moore. “Right now we think there are more than 1,000 volunteer hours in the project.”

Dan Johnston of Johnston Construction, who has lived in Kingston all of his life, donated more than 100 hours to level the site with a large excavator, an end dump and a D3 Caterpillar tractor. “I just thought [the project] needed to be done for the kids and for the people in the community, so I was glad to help.”

In a June 6 presentation to county commissioners, Wetter cited Johnston Construction, Roger and Phil Contraro of Contraro Trucking and Northern Asphalt, Emu Topsoil, Kingston Lumber, Homeland Construction, Premier Rentals, Sunset Electric, Randy Can, and Cup and Muffin, which provided lunches for volunteers, as major contributors. “The fact these businesses donated so much when facing a severe recession says a lot about our community,” he said.

All of the donated hours are important, Moore said. “When we go out for more funding, especially for the building projects, being able to show how much money has been donated in volunteer hours and in-kind donations of time or materials makes a huge impression about how committed the community is to this project.”Cathy Morris, ReMax, and her husband Glen Doremire donated a couple of hours of time at the end of a busy work week.

“It was a great experience and gave me a great appreciation of all the work that volunteers do in our community. I got a call to help from several organizations such as Garden Club, the Chamber of Commerce and even my own ReMax office. “Neat to see how our community responded and to see how much was accomplished in just two or three weeks. My husband and I were happy to go down at the end of work week and donate a couple of hours and are grateful that we had the opportunity to be part of such a wonderful community project.”

Volunteers ranged from young to vintage, from 16-year-old Chad Lanning to Hal Hoover, who is in his eighties. As Hoover was out in the hot sun raking rocks to prepare for hydroseeding, he summed up the experience: “What a wonderful addition this will be to Kingston. I’m so proud to be a part of it.”