October 2016
The HMP Pocket Park Committee would like to give a huge shout out to Larry Sanner who wrote a generous check for a bike rack for the pocket park. Now there is a place other than the fence where park visitors can park their bikes. Thank you Larry Sanner!!!
September 2016
The Historic Meridian Park Pocket Park, 209 E. 33rd Street (by the alley) continues to progress towards completion. The next, and nearly the last, phase of the project will be the concrete walkways and shelter floor. The job will consist of ground preparation and form construction, followed by the actual concrete pouring and finishing. More volunteer labor is, of course, always needed. There will be more information as the project nears.
Want to help finish the park? We need your help. Immediate funding needs are:
- Shelter floor
- Concrete walkways
- New flowers for pillar pots
- Replacement tire swing and toddler swing
- Addition to playstation (climbing ropes on front “goalpost”)
- Little Lending Library installation
Joyce Moore has graciously donated a tote to collect rainwater in the pocket park. This is an environmentally friendly way to harvest water can be used to water flowers and keep the park looking beautiful.
Your financial contributions are appreciated however, if you prefer, you can sponsor the purchase of one or more actionable items listed above. Please contact Cassie Mehlman Rhys at cassiemehlmanrhys@gmail.com.
August 2016
Progress on the pocket park continues:
- Mark Herner spent countless hours in the heat and humidity this past July staining the woodwork in the pocket park drastically improving the aesthetics of the equipment. Don’t forget to thank Mark for all his hard work next time you see him.
- Mark, Anthony Mezetta, and John Carmer have volunteered to work on the completing the concrete work.
- Mark and Joyce Moore are working on getting a natural water source installed in the park.
- Since losing our mowing company, Brian Simmons has stepped up to keep the grounds mowed.
- A “Little Free Library” has been donated by Angela Colby. Soon neighbors can come to the park and either borrow a book or donate a book.
The completion and maintenance of the park takes a lot of volunteers and many neighbors have stepped up to the plate. The progress thus far can be credited to the many hours of charity and volunteerism of those individuals. There is, and always will be more to do. The pocket park is an ongoing project that requires regular but minimal and affordable physical and financial commitment from friends and neighbors. Ongoing financial support for the park is will fund maintenance and insurance. But the park still has other needs. Donations towards, or outright purchase of the following are still needed:
- Replacement tire swing and toddler swing
- Bike rack
- Playstation improvements
- Picnic tables
- Flowers
Pocket Park Challenge
To raise funds for the park improvements, a pocket park challenge was issued. Pocket Park Committee members Cassie Mehlman-Rhys and Sharon Gamble put up a challenge grant for the neighborhood. Each donated $1,000 to the park and promised to give $1,000 more each if neighbors would donate $2,000 total. The total campaign amount, $6,000, would be used to build the shelter foundation and lay concrete walkways and a pad for watching movies in the park. Once this work is complete, the committee can finish fencing in the park and building picnic tables to put in the shelter area.
Not only did HMP meet the $6K challenge, it exceeded it! Thanks to the following neighbors for making it happen:
- Andrew and Kristen Smith
- Augusta and Mitchell McClean
- Ben and Abby Nicol
- Bob Mead Interiors
- Carmer Watson, LLP
- Doug Fuhrman and Leigh Ann Moore
- Glenn and Lindsey Hein
- Jason and Lindsey Shine
- Mark Herner and Karla Johnson
- Mark Webb and Lee Smith
- Matt and Leslie Hale
- Meghan McGuire
- Nick Wright and Ericka Stout
- Peggy Barnes
- Peter Iverson and Babs Button
- Rick and Lorraine Vavul
- Ryan and Sarah Noel
- Spencer and Alisha Valentine
And of course special thanks to our challenge grant funders Sharon Gamble and Cassie Mehlman-Rhys.
To donate to the park or join the committee, contact Pocket Park Committee Chair Cassie Mehlman-Rhys at 317-997-2791 or cassiemehlmanrhys@gmail.com.
Special Thanks to Top Pocket Park Donors
The Historic Meridian Park Pocket Park Committee in conjunction with the Historic Meridian Park Neighborhood Association Board would like to pay special tribute to our top 10 pocket park donors.
The pocket park project is the largest and most long-term improvement the neighborhood has ever undertaken. These donors’ demonstrated real vision and trust in the project over the past three years. Without them, we would not have been able to purchase the land to get the project started and qualify for grant funding Although we enjoy several grants and partnerships including Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors, Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, The Children’s Museum, and the Mapleton-Fall Creek Development Corporation; the vast majority of our funds were raised directly from neighbors and small business! To date, we have raised over $40,000 from neighbors and small businesses alone.
Please help us in thanking the following individuals and small businesses who have each donated $1,000.00 or more.
- Angela and David Colby
- Bob and Joanne Giannini
- Cassie Mehlman-Rhys and Lee Rhys
- Christy Krieg and Pat Carroll
- Dr. Steve Towns and Dr. Jeanette Holloway
- Jess Lanore
- Lippitt, LLC
- Sharon Gamble
- The Local Loaf
A Safer Place To Go
An open appeal to Historic Meridian Park neighbors by Mark Herner
Having recently become bicycle-competent, my 10-year-old daughter is thrilled with the independence that mobility provides, or at least its illusion. As she and her friends take off up the sidewalk, what’s become their favorite destination? It’s our new, as yet unfinished, pocket park at 33rd and the Delaware alley. Whenever she and her friends–boy, girl, younger, older—get together, it’s off to the pocket park.
If you think back, really hard, when you were first able to “leave home”, there was probably a target destination for you too, a place to go meet your friends. Perhaps some were already there, waiting for you. And what did you do there? Hang out. Mess around. Nothin’.
But something was going on. Imagination. Fantasy. Bonding.
The pocket park began as a vision shared by dozens of neighbors in 2012. After three town hall meetings and a great deal of fundraising, the site was acquired and a design was completed with the help of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Wil Marquez and his firm w/purpose, Ball State University architecture professor George Elvin and his design students, plus the devoted work of many neighbors. The goal was to create a nice, safe place in the neighborhood where we could all go–adults too! Since then, construction has included a 15 by 24-foot shelter building, various wooden play platforms, a brick entry gate, fencing, and partial landscaping. Still to go is the concrete shelter floor, walkways, the remaining landscaping, fence (the fence has been purposely left incomplete to allow equipment in to the park to pour the concrete), and rainwater reclamation system for the grass and plants (the least expensive of them all as it turns out).
The neighborhood needs your help to finish it. Money, time, and elbow grease will do it. Maybe a task force to complete all the amenities is required. How do you see this differing from the pocket park committee?
But do the kids go there for any of the amenities? No, just to hang out, mess around and do nothing. Like we did.
Please note: The park is not officially open yet because the neighborhood needs to raise about $10,000 more to complete the above items! Want to help? Contact Cassie Mehlman-Rhys at cassiemehlmanrhys@gmail.com.
Recent Progress Update
Many neighbors have been wondering what is going on with the Pocket Park. There has not been a work day scheduled for a few months and the grass had gotten a bit overgrown. The Pocket Park Committee met to discuss the next stages of work and current conditions that needed immediate attention.
The Shelter: The park shelter took longer and cost more than budgeted to complete. There are a few reasons for the cost overruns, but the structure was made sturdier and able to withstand stronger winds and natural conditions than the original plans.
The Dirt: As a result of the shelter, quite a bit of soil was displaced. The committee asked that the contractors save the dirt to level out areas of the park. The committee anticipated that the dirt would be left in one large pile. However, through a misunderstanding, the dirt was left throughout the park leaving it more uneven than it was prior.
The Grass: The company that cut the grass in the park did business for a former neighbor and when they were in the neighborhood, they also cut the grass in the park. However, when the neighbor moved and the company no longer had any business in the neighborhood, it did not make fiscal sense for that company to continue cutting the park for the deeply discounted rate. The committee is looking into other options for lawn care.
The committee has set a list of priorities for the park now that the weather is warming:
- Staining the shelter and play stations.
- Pouring the shelter floor and walkways.
- Placing the final sections of the fence once the need for large or heavy equipment is over.
- Scheduling park workdays. Please plan to assist. Any help is better than none at all.
And remember to continue to make your tax deductible contributions to the park to help maintain the neighborhood gathering space.
If you have questions about the pocket park, what is left to do, how you can help accomplish the remaining tasks, and how you can assist financially, please email Karla Johnson at johnson.karla67@gmail.com and she will get the answers to your questions published in the Urban Times and this website.