Category Overview
Local Parks grants help protect these symbols of vibrant communities, providing places for families to gather and play and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle in an era when people spend increasing amounts of their time inside. The WWRP is the largest source of local parks funding in Washington, helping communities fund the acquisition, development, and renovation of vital recreation areas and green spaces.
Project Highlights
The Kent Service Club Park, phase 1 project, is for the development of a four-field youth ballfield complex on 14.5 acres of a 28.81 acre undeveloped park site on the East Hill of Kent. In addition to four light youth fields,the project includes a 280 stall parking, lot, play equipment, restroom/shelter building, site furniture, landscaping, utilities and fencing. The site is flat, well-drained open space ideally suited for ballfield construction. Eight service clubs have joined forces and have pledged in writing to donate a minimum of $140,000 in cash and labor toward the ballfield development. This joint community project will provide much needed ballfields for Kent’s 207 youth baseball and softball teams comprising of 3,000 young athletes. 85% of these participants live on the East Hill where there are no City owned ballfields for either youth or adults. This requires up to 45 minutes in commute time for those living in the easterly part of the service area to reach the downtown fields where the youth games are played.. The City has leased 4 of the 12 downtown fields for several years. That property is currently being looked at by developers and there is a real threat that we will lose the use of the property in the next year or two. This will have a devastating affect on the program which is already short on fields.