The Parks & Recreation Commission on Wednesday night voted unanimously in favor of an Eagle Scout project to install a cornhole area in a local park.
Artaxerxes, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Troop 70 Life Scout James Generalis told members of the Commission that in designing his Eagle Scout project he “wanted to do something that really impacted the community that a lot of members could use.”
Just which park would take the new cornhole area is not yet settled, he said.
“It could either be Kiwanis, it could be Mead, it could be Irwin,” Generalis told the Commission at its regular meeting, held in Lapham Community Center and via videoconference. “It would be ultimately up to you guys to decide where to put it. But you can see I sketched out what I envision the area to look like and the dimensions of the cornhole boards, as well as the [Rams] design we’ll put on the cornhole boards. We would be providing [inaudible] boxes in the area, which is made of stone dust that the cornhole woods lay on. And we, Troop 70, would be restocking 20 red and 20 black bean bags a year to keep it going, make sure that nothing gets stolen, lost, ruined. And make sure that as many people can enjoy it as possible.”
Parks & Recreation Director John Howe said he’d met with Generalis and is supportive of the project.
Commission Chair George Benington, Secretary Francesca Segalas and members Tim Klimpl, Doug Murphy, Keith Richey, Lindsey Heron, Hank Green, Sue Lione, Gene Goodman and Melany Hearne voted in favor. Commissioner Jake Granito was absent.
Cornhole is a lawn game where players take turns throwing fabric bean bags at a raised, angled board with a hole in its far end.
Generalis said he envisions a “45-by-30 foot stone dust area that we would dig out, fill in, and then we would put the boards on and that would be the area.”
“Our goal is to make the boards as weatherproof as possible,” he said. “So no one would have to come in, take in the boards, do anything like that. We want them to stay there 24/7, and for them to be immune to the elements.”
Commissioners asked whether the area would require flat land (yes, though in setting up the stonedust area some land would be flattened), whether parks officials have been consulted (yes), whether the area would be lit (no but areas that already have lighting are being considered), where the former horseshoe pit area is at Mead (past the playground, near the right-field fence of Gamble Field) and whether the Scouts would keep up the boards in perpetuity (Generalis himself will oversee them to ensure nothing is damaged or stolen).
Segalas asked which age group the new cornhole area would target.
Generalis said, “Honestly I was thinking of targeting multiple age groups… You have parents waiting for their kids on the playground to play, all ages.”
Bennington said the important thing is that parks officials “have the maximum amount of flexibility as to the location of these wonderful, I think, new devices that would add a great deal of value to the town.”