Boulder’s East Side Park isn’t much to look at. There’s an ancient, sagging swing set and a slide on a patch of green on East 2nd Avenue near North Parsons Street, but not much else — save a view of the hills — by way of recreation.
“That’s something we’d like to fix!” exclaimed Camden Graves, the Americorps volunteer who is leading an effort to improve the small city property.
The effort is still in its early stages. But with the cooperation of the city’s Planning Board, the Kiwanis Club of Boulder and Growing Community Naturally are aiming to upgrade the park’s playground equipment, do some landscaping, and possibly add an outdoor pavilion for picnics.
Graves has been in Boulder since last July, when she came to Montana from London, England. Originally from the California Bay Area, Graves has a background in helping non-profit organizations, but she admits Montana has its own unique style. “Things seem to move a little slower here than in London or LA.,” she said.
Graves originally was meant to improve the “Forest Garden,” a community-run perennial food system that Growing Community Naturally, a non-profit organization dedicated to community-based environmental sustainability, has stewarded on an edge of the East Side Park since 2015.
Growing Community Naturally and the Kiwanis had hoped to bring city water supply to the project to improve irrigation. But that, Graves said, proved impossible — and there was little community support for the project. So her focus shifted to improving East Side Park next door, an idea several community organizations embraced.
“We just think with the pavilion and some nice landscaping, we can make it a really nice drive on the way out to the cemetery.” says Graves.
With the city’s informal benediction, Graves and the Kiwanis are focused on raising the money for the project. There isn’t yet a formal plan, or a budget — but a community fundraiser is planned for May 11 in Boulder, when the project team hopes to show its design to the community, and begin collecting the funds to make it happen.
For Graves, who has spent much of the last six months toiling in a nearly secret closet-sized workspace in the basement beneath the County Treasurer’s office, there is another deadline: her Americorps volunteer assignment finishes at the end of July. She isn’t hopeful that she will be in Boulder to see the project to its finish. Rather, she hopes to have a preliminary plan approved by then, and fundraising efforts in the works, so that others can finish the job.
“But,” she said, “I’ll come back for the ribbon cutting!”
