By Ashley McCleery

The North Jefferson News



With the help of Lowe’s, Lowe’s vendors and the Morris community, the children of Morris now have a new playground to use at Ed Reno Ballpark.

A ceremony was held Saturday at 11 a.m. to dedicate the new playground.

It all started with Lowe’s Heroes project, a program in which each Lowe’s store receives a certain budget to spend on community projects. When the Lowe’s in Trussville surveyed their Lowe’s Heroes budget, they didn’t know where the $1,200 would best be spent to help the community.

“I knew the perfect place,” Stacey Grigsby, the Trussville Lowe’s human resource coordinator, said. “I had seen Morris’ playground, and I knew what they had. It was so sad.”

The only objects on the playground were two deteriorating horse rockers and a broken merry go round, which Grisgby said was dangerous. “The playground was the least important to the park,” she said. “The field and fundamentals were taken care of, but the playground was pushed aside.”

After the Trussville Lowe’s agreed to donate their funds to the park, the Fultondale Lowe’s joined forces and gave the Trussville Lowe’s their Heroes budget to help the park. The combined budget of $2,400 bought two new playground sets for the park.

However, when the Lowe’s vendors heard about this community project, they wanted to get involved. Companies such as Valspar and Olympic Paint donated several thousand dollars of paint to repaint the press box, bleachers and equipment.

Old Castle contributed stones to build castle walls, Dupont provided rubber mulch for the ground, Kohler donated four toilets and Harbor Breeze gave four ceiling fans for the pavilion.

In light of these contributions, others decided to offer their services to the Morris Park like Tommy Trimm of Trimm Landscapes Inc. Since Trimm buys his supplies at Lowe’s, he soon heard about this project and decided to pay his crew to landscape the playground for one full day.

Although Trimm couldn’t participate in the workday, he said he was glad to send his crew. “We got a good crew, and they took care of it,” Trimm said. “It was a simple thing to do, but I’m glad we were able to participate.”

Grigsby said their help was vital in creating a successful playground. “We would have never had a professional looking playground had it not been for his crew. They took pride in making it be as nice as they possibly could.”

Members of the Morris community also participated in the construction during these workdays by helping Trim’s crew, and Grigsby witnessed this project bring the community together.

“You really didn’t realize how many toddlers and kids under the age of eight were at the park until we started digging. Then droves of little kids kept coming and playing. It warms my heart seeing kids just be kids.”

Kim Sanders, executive board secretary of Morris Youth Association, agreed. “When people are at the park, the kids are on the playground 24/7. Seeing the joy in the child is totally worth it.”

Sanders also said the volunteers were essential to this project, thanking them for their hard work.

Other than seeing the children’s smiles, Grigsby said she has loved watching Lowe’s effort change the community. “Morris is like a Mayberry town. It’s an awesome town,” she said. “It took one little thing to get started, and it pulled the community together. Lowe’s effort has impacted Morris in a big way.”