Grants
Project Name: Village of Clay Center Park Mower
Project Location: Village of Clay Center
The Village of Clay Center received funding for the purchase of a new Toro mower for the 7-acre Village Park to replace an aging, unreliable mower. The Genoa Area Rec Soccer program has utilized the space at Clay Center fields for many years and supplied a letter of support for the request. The program has exceeded 200+ participants and has continued to grow over the years. The program serves players from ages 3-13, and with this many players (always a double-digit number of teams), the Village of Clay Center has to use multiple sites to accommodate all of the players and teams. Clay Center is currently the largest site and hosts the U10-U14 teams. The Village of Clay Center also provides access to the shed at the park for equipment as well as the picnic areas for the spring season cookout and end-of-year celebration.
For the Spring 2024 season, the Clay Center facility hosted seven teams from the program. In addition, some of the younger teams in the U4-U6 occasionally utilized the space as well. By having the new mower after receiving this grant, players, teams, and the community benefited from proper playing conditions on the field. The soccer fields, along with the playground and picnic areas, were very challenging to keep mowed this Spring with the record 9+ inches of rainfall in April. Staff were mowing twice a week to keep up. The new Toro was a huge upgrade over the aging and unreliable mower. The Village of Clay Center is very appreciative of this support of the Park District of Ottawa County, and the benefit this in turn provided to the Genoa soccer community.