Volunteerism saves Westside Park pavilion

Several years ago the city tore down the bandstand stating that it was a safety hazard and had to be removed. Then the goal became to build a pavilion to replace the bandstand. The bandstand was built in 1922 by the women of Minonk to serve as a memorial for World War I veterans. We felt that a war memorial must be replaced.

Last year a fund drive was initiated to collect money for the construction of a pavilion that would serve not only as a war memorial but as a place where reunions, picnics, and meetings could be held. The fund drive resulted in $32,000. Another $7,000 was collected from previous fund drives. The city committed $34,000 towards the pavilion and $5,000 was received from the State of Illinois which resulted in a total of $78,000 available to build the pavilion.

Unfortunately, the bids for building the pavilion ranged anywhere from $104,000 to $215,000! It appeared that something else had to happen for the pavilion to be built. And it did.

I had talked to Randy Kleen, a local contractor in Minonk, about our predicament a few months ago. Randy contacted Dave McBride who is the head of the local labor union in Roanoke. McBride offered free union labor to help build the pavilion. In addition, Randy contacted Richard Berschorner of Minonk who had previously offered his services as a plumber. Rich agreed to provide the plumbing labor for the project with members from his union local in Bloomington.

Suddenly, it appeared that we might have a chance to build the pavilion after all with free labor. We submitted specs to local lumber yards and determined that there was enough money in the fund to cover the material cost. Now we could afford to build the pavilion.

Reverend Harry Sanders gave an excellent talk at the ground breaking cermony for the pavilion Saturday morning. He referred to the biblical story about a person who was attempting to rebuild the wall around the city but nobody would listen to him. Finally, it happened through perseverance and hard work. Relating this story to the Westside Park pavilion, it almost seems like a divine intervention that enabled everything to fall into place at the last minute to make construction of the pavilion possible.

I wish to thank Randy Kleen, Richard Borschorner, and Dave McBride for making the construction of the pavilion possible. I don't know if they realize what a favor they are doing for the citizens of this community. We can still use more volunteers to help construct the pavilion, especially in electrical work. If you have the necessary skills in electrical work or carpentry and wish to help in construction of the pavilion, please contact Randy Kleen or myself. Our plans are to start digging the footings later this month and to have the pavilion built by this fall.

For those who have not yet made a donation to the Westside Park Pavilion, we encourage you to donate. The pavilion will be built but there are not enough funds to furnish the structure. In addition, we still need funds for the kitchen, for tables and benches and for a permanent fund that is being established to provide maintenance to the pavilion as well. We want to make sure that funds are available to keep the structure in good repair.

Money also is needed to provide landscaping not only around the new pavilion but in other areas of the park. The park needs new trees to replace the many old trees that will eventually come down.

Thanks to volunteerism, Minonk's first and premier park will come to life again with the construction of the new pavilion.