By Michael Howell –
You couldn’t ask for a better day to celebrate the opening of a splash park for children than last Saturday, June 4. The sky was a cloudless blue, winds were calm and temperatures were headed towards the 80s as the water first started squirting from the fountains at Willow Springs, the new splash park located adjacent to Hideout Mountain Park in Florence. The kids, hesitant at first, soon mobbed the new facility, all laughing and splashing in the various fountains. The was surely the first of many fun days to come.
The fountains are activated by pressing a large blue button on the splash deck and the water runs for a set period of time before it shuts off automatically. Somebody must push the large blue button for the fountains to cycle again. The park will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the summer.
Doug Parrot, husband of deceased Christy Parrot, to whom the park was dedicated, gave the inaugural remarks. He spoke about how his wife came up with the idea of creating a splash park next to Hideout Mountain.
“She loved Hideout Mountain. She said it’s a nice park, but there’s no way for the kids to cool off.”
She went to work on the idea but was unable to see it through to completion as she suffered and died from a brain tumor. He said he was very thankful for the way the community came together to make her dream a reality. He thanked all the committee members of the group that helped to make the splash deck a reality. He thanked the many friends, community volunteers and local businesses that donated time, money and materials. He thanked BN Builders, especially Tyson Watson, for all the help as well as Brugh Landscaping. He thanked Cristi Migliaccio for all her tireless fundraising efforts.
Parrott said that the fundraising efforts initiated in the summer of 2010 reached their goal of $60,000 by August and continued to raise a few thousand over that. He said it was enough to help set up some sort of maintenance program.
