St. Joseph Parks Dept. and others receive awards at state conference

Healthy Community Award – appearing left to right, Chuck Kempf, Director of Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities; Julie Noel, Special Events & Communications Coordinator; Jende Smith, Aquatics Manager; Jeff Atkins, Assistant Director of Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities. Photo courtesy St. Joseph Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities.

The City of St. Joseph Parks Department along with a St. Joseph volunteer and an organization received awards last week.

The awards are given out at the Missouri Parks and Recreation Association Conference each year.

“They have awards for volunteers, they have awards for staff, they have awards for retirees, there’s a variety of different awards (and) they recognize folks at their annual conference,” said Chuck Kempf, St. Joseph Parks, Recreation and Civic Facilities Director.

Kempf said this year, an individual citation was given to Joseph Houts.

Individual and Organization Citation Awards – appearing left to right, Chuck Kempf, Director of Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities; Joseph Houts, Individual citation; Jeff Atkins, Assistant Director of Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities – holding the organization citation. Photo courtesy St. Joseph Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities.

“We nominated (him) as an individual who has dedicated a lot of his time and energy as a volunteer for the Parks Department, primarily through fundraising and supporting historical efforts that we have had at the Nature Center… and a few other Park projects and city projects through the years,” Kempf said.

An organization citation was awarded to the George Bode Jr. Benevolent Trust.

“The Bode Trust had never been recognized with this award… and we really felt like that was well beyond time so we nominated them this year,” Kempf said. “We just want the people that help us to realize that we appreciate that. We can thank them and send them thank you cards and give them some local recognition. We just felt like it was an opportunity to give them a little higher level of recognition.”

The Parks and Rec Department received the Show Me Healthy Communities Statewide Training and Funding Initiative Award regarding the Bartlett Park Playground and Recreation project.

“It’s nice when somebody recognizes the fact that you’re trying to do good things, that you’re trying to provide new programming that hasn’t existed in the past or maybe it has existed but not to this level,” Kempf said. “The YMCA has a tremendous inclusive playground at their property and they were kind of the leader in St. Joseph in heading in that direction. At Bartlett Park, which is really our heaviest used playground in the city, we felt like that was an appropriate place to have a large ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant and inclusive playground.”

Kempf said, weather permitting, Bartlett Park renovations are still on track to be completed in May.