The playground in Callaway’s Morgan Park has a new look and a new surface, thanks to the efforts of the Village Economic Development Director Kacee Gillis. The project was the first that Gillis set her sights on when taking the role a year and a half ago.

“This has been a long-time-coming project,” Gillis explained. “When I first started at the Village, I had heard in a board meeting about the playground flooring and how, at some point, it would need to be redone due to damage in the tiling. So since I didn’t have a big project yet, I thought I would just look into it.”

She began by researching grant opportunities that might help pay for such a project, and initially applied for a large grant. The Village was not awarded that grant, but Gillis wasn’t giving up.

“The cycle came around for the Custer County Tourism, Custer County Foundation, and Callaway Community Foundation grants. So I applied for all of those grants and was able to get all of those, which was such a blessing,” said Gillis.

Those grants provided a large share of the funds needed to replace the flooring under the playground, and Gillis was off and running. Next, she sent out letters to local businesses requesting donations “for the betterment and future development of Callaway”. She had a few of those businesses, including Nebraska State Bank and Norder Fertilizer, which donated to the cause.

She then met a man named Lane Nansel, whose family was from the Callaway area. “He wanted to donate some money toward the park, but wasn’t

Cont. PAGE 3: Morgan Park quite sure what that would be. Along with the playground flooring, I had grouped in ways to just make the park better if I got plenty of money, and that’s where the idea of new picnic tables fell into place,” Gillis explained. “Lane Nansel wanted to donate some picnic tables in honor of his family, specifically his parents, and donated a couple of tables. But he actually passed in the midst of all the other things coming to fruition, so his family, who is so kind, took donations for the park. He had also left a sum of money to be used toward the park, so we are going to get more picnic tables through that and it also helped get the little bit of extra funding that was still needed for the playground flooring. It was such a generous donation.”

With the funding secured, the next step was to solicit bids and present everything to the Village Board for approval. Gillis said those things took a little bit of time, but once approval was given, things moved pretty quickly. The village employees removed the old tiles from beneath the playground and prepped the site.

“Then the company that we hired came in and poured everything, and it is set and ready to go,” Gillis said.

The improved playground was opened to the public on Monday, Sept. 29, and with the nice weather last week, the children in the community made good use of it. “It’s very padded and squishy, and I think it looks very nice,” said Gillis. “I am hoping it stands the test of time for quite a while. The tiles lasted for almost 10 years, and hopefully this is a bigger improvement.”

Gillis added that one of her biggest goals was to make the playground flooring project 100 percent grant and/or donation-funded. She also applied for some excess LB840 funds, which are geared specifically for community improvement. The total cost of the park improvement project, including the new picnic tables, was about $65,000.

“Being able to not put any of the burden on the community or the Village Board to find the money somewhere for this was my biggest goal. So I was really pleased that I was able to do that,” she shared.

As her “day job,” Gillis is a full-time nurse at Callaway District Hospital, which she said is also beneficial in her Village role. One of the biggest challenges she said she has faced is learning all the ins and outs of LB840, which she said is still taking quite a bit of her time.

All LB840 applications in the community go to her as program administrator. She then presents those applications to the committee and eventually to the Village Board.

Gillis said she is keeping her eyes open for the next community project to tackle, as she listens to the public about what they would like to see next for Callaway. In the meantime, kiddos and adults alike are invited to take advantage of the nice fall days to enjoy the new and improved Morgan Park.