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Vol. 18, No. 35
May 18, 2022
Celebration pg. 7
Sports pg. 13
Aging pg. 20
Students, community bring new life to Pollywog Park Story and photos by Taylor Davison / Valley Journal
RONAN — Pollywog Park behind K. William Harvey Elementary has been a staple of the community for many years. Now, thanks to some elementary school students and neighborhood efforts, it’s finally getting a facelift. Spearheaded by Ronan School District’s After School Club Coordinator Angele Popyk and Claudia Andrade with the MSU Lake County Extension Office, the park has gotten its first up-
grade in years in the form of a barefoot walking path. A concept popular in Europe, the path encourages kids to take their shoes off and connect with the earth through numerous types of textures, from gravel to lava rock to sand. While Popyk credits Andrade with forming their partnership, Andrade said the idea came to be thanks to Popyk’s suggestion at a youth educators’ group in which they both participate. “It helped us put together other pieces,” Andrade said of the collaboration. “We though ‘Hey,
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there are a lot of us here who could come together and work on this.’” Pollywog Park was named in 1978 after the elementary school held a competition to name the piece of land. Local special education teacher Holly Duffy, a first grader at the time, and her brother both entered name suggestions, and both ended up front runners for the prize. Duffy does clarify that it was really their mother who came up with the names they submitted and Pollywog was the winner. This beloved park was once
used for natural history classes and at one point in time had markers for the different displays and features it housed. However, the project faded away over the years and members of the school district have had too much on their plates to revive it themselves. So, volunteers have been stepping up to bring the park back to its former glory. Last year, volunteer groups took the first step in restoring the park by weeding the land and clearing out debris. For safety, some of the bridges were
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