BY SHARYN KOPF
If you’ve ever tried to hike around the pond at Fred Carter Park on Lakewood Drive, Bellefontaine, you might have quickly found yourself feeling a bit like a jungle explorer, wishing you’d brought a machete to bushwhack your way through the thick underbrush.
Fortunately, it’s a relatively small park so, eventually, you could find your way out.
And yes, I’m speaking from experience.
But that’s not the case anymore. Thanks to a crew from Vineyard Christian Fellowship (VCF) church, the park now has two clear, six-foot-wide trails totaling three-quarters of a mile. It also has a rebuilt bridge and more open banks for fishing.
“We’re very excited about the progress made and the great work by these volunteers,” Kris Myers, Bellefontaine parks superintendent, said. “This project will really open up hiking at Fred Carter Park.”
The park, which was purchased by the city in 1971, consists of roughly 29 acres of wooded area around a two-acre lake. It was named after Fred W. Carter — who loved Bellefontaine and Logan County and had an expansive knowledge of both — in April 1987, thanks to an essay written by a 10-year-old named Sara Hawkins.
According to David Schwieterman, who started planning months ago and helped lead the work crew, this was part of VCF’s five-year plan, which has four pillars. One of those is more community engagement.
“So we asked Kris if they had a project for about 20 people for one week and he gave us Fred Carter Park,” Schwieterman stated.
“We told him we wanted to make sure it was enough work, and he wasn’t kidding.”
Starting Monday, July 15, a group of adults and young people from VCF have worked six-hour days at the park, weeding, cutting back trees and saplings, and removing five large bags of trash plus an old gas grill. They finished on Friday, July 19, by mulching the entire trail.
But it’s not just hikers who will benefit. Anglers too will now find it easier to fish along the cleared-off banks of the pond, which contains Japanese coy, catfish, bass and blue gill. The
team trimmed back weeds and cut off the low-hanging branches of trees to make the water more accessible.
“The park has been neglected too long, and the city wants to help people re-embrace it,” Jamison Thornton, another VCF volunteer, said.
In fact, the parks department provided invaluable assistance to the project by hauling away all the brush and debris and by hauling in the truckloads of mulch they needed to finish.
It’s been a lot of work but, fortunately, the July weather cooperated by only making them deal with two hot days and one afternoon when they had to cut out two hours early due to rain.
The slightly cooler temps Wednesday through Friday, though, provided ideal conditions for such hard outdoor labor.
Adding the people and amount of time they spent at the park together, the group put in almost 600 hours toward making the area more usable. It’s something the parks department would have had trouble accomplishing with their limited resources.
“I walked 12 miles in one day,” Thornton admitted, but added it was worth it.
“People can walk side-by-side around the park and there’s no way you can get
lost now.”
Schwieterman agreed and concluded, “We just wanted to do something for Bellefontaine.”
So grab your hiking shoes and fishing poles and enjoy all Fred Carter Park has to offer!
