Two years ago, the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Department and congressman Jerry Moran’s office announced that two of St. John’s parks would receive $33,403 in matching federal grant money! Linda Lanterman, the State Parks Assistant Director, made the announcement in a letter sent to our city staff.

As a result, Brown Park has a new picnic shelter, an addition to the walking trail, a skateboard park, ten plastic-coated, metal picnic tables and five barbecue grills.

Cornwell Park has a new children’s swing set placed in a safety area comprised of a foot deep layering of oak shavings. The ten feet tall swing set is the same style as the new swing set purchased for Brown Park.

The new hexagon shaped picnic shelter covers 260 square feet and has a tilted roof. It is located next to Main Street, between our city’s swimming pool and baseball field. The new extension to our walking trail connects the shelter to Brown Park hill. There is also access from Main Street and ADA access from the swimming pool area.

Two of the mesh picnic tables were placed in the new shelter, with eight tables placed in the other four shelters. The assortment of new tables consists of five 8 feet long tables, four 9 1/2 feet long tables that are ADA assessable, and one preschool table.

All of the picnic shelters in Brown Park have a new barbecue grill. Each of these grills have a very large cooking area, so if any group needs a lot of cooking space, they have it!

A skateboard park was built next to our city’s tennis courts. The $38,560 park replaced the old sand volleyball court located just east of the courts. Most of the credit for the idea of a skateboard park goes to Billy Shields. His work, along with over two hundred children signing a petition, helped convince our city council about the importance of having such a park in St. John! Our council was very impressed with all the work Mr. Shields did using the internet in researching this project!

Our parks project was one of five selected out of fifteen applications in Kansas! Out of the $500,000 alloted that year for Kansas parks, Pratt received $200,000 for a new sports complex, Lenexa received $107,000 for a skateboard park, Brideport Park in Wichita received $81,000 for a soccer field, Manhattan received $65,000 for a skateboard park, and St. John received over $33,000.

The total amount of our recreation projects came to $66,806 with our city paying half the cost.

. Ms. Lanterman also mentioned that the grant money came from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and is designated for recreation areas.

(Created in 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund is the largest source of federal money for park, wildlife, and open space land acquisition. Its funding comes primarily from offshore oil and gas drilling receipts, with an authorized expenditure of $900 million each year. Under the act, a portion of the money is intended to go to federal land purchases and a portion to the states as matching grants for local park projects. - from "The Trust for Public Land" website)

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