Ten years later, the Freedom Park is finished

MANAWA – A project that began with an idea to build a park to honor not only the city’s veterans and active duty military, but a place where military families can also come to relax is nearing completion.
The donor appreciation walls that honors those who donated their time, money or both was recently finished at the Manawa Area Veterans Freedom Park.
This marked the last big addition to the park with a handful of smaller projects to follow and be finished up this year.
The concept to build a veterans park started in October 2015 when John Smith, the mayor at the time as well as owner of Manawa Steak House, noticed surrounding communities having their own veteran memorial parks, something he took even more notice of after his daughter joined the military.
“I felt as though until you love someone serving your country you have no idea, not of their sacrifices, the sacrifices of the family,” Smith said. “They’re trained to do what they’re doing, they have a job to do, and they’re focused on serving our country, while we are home worrying about them.”

After talking to people with a family member in the service and local veterans, Smith joined forces with community members to create a veteran’s memorial park in Manawa.
Smith approached the city council and asked for permission to build a veterans park on the property behind the Sturm Memorial Library and the Cline Hanson Dahlke Funeral Home.
When the city council granted permission to the committee to build the park, they had to sign a lease and maintain the insurance on the property. There was no monetary rent required through the lease.
With the veteran’s park committee taking over the construction of the park they were able to put volunteers to work, hire local contractors and have a choice in what was put out to bid.
If the city had taken on the construction process there would have been a more rigid set of rules to follow for the building process.
They started fundraising with brat fries, hosting the annual Freedom Shoot in May, the fishing derby in January as well as a handful of years having “Let’s Be Frank Productions,” at Bear Lake Resort, said Deb Sarna, one of the long-time committee members.
There were intermittent fundraisers in between such as when the Harlem Ambassadors came to play a game against a Manawa team in October 2016 as well as a hosting a triathlon in 2018.
After the first few years they decided to drop all the fundraisers outside of the Freedom Shoot and the Freedom Fishery as these yielded the highest revenue.
As the committee was taking in money from fundraising there were soon able to begin construction on the first piece of the park which was the memorial itself.
The memorial side of the park was finished and dedicated Nov. 11, 2017.
Smith said the memorial is filled with symbolism, with the red crushed granite signifying bloodshed, the pentagon signifying the five branches of military and the bridge signifies the bond between families and the military.
Smith noted that the Space Force is not represented in the memorial, simply because it was not in existence at the time of construction.
After that they moved on to the shelter building, the fishing dock, the playground and the splash pad, in that order.
There was also the installation of the playground and the pergola, with one of the recent additions being pickle ball courts.
There is still a little money left in the 501c(3) account which the committee is looking to use up with a handful of more additions before they fully hand the park back over to the city.
Joe Starr, another long-time committee member, is assisting with the finishing touches for the park, which includes benches in the pickle ball courts, picnic tables under the pergola and permanent corn hole boards.
Starr said he hopes to get the last of these projects done this year.
Starr also acknowledged that the project was a long journey from start to finish, and praises the community for stepping up in such a big way.
“This is yours,” Sarna said. “There probably wasn’t a person that didn’t contribute in some way or another by buying a ticket, by coming to an event, by donating a raffle prize, a door prize.”
The project took a decade and the small group that had an idea for a park to honor veterans managed to raise almost a million dollars to create a place to honor veterans and provide a place to relax and have fun for the families.
“In my heart knowing that we did something for our veterans and their families is the biggest reward there is,” Smith said. “The second is listening to other people say what a beautiful park we have.”
Starr agrees that without the support of the community this project wouldn’t have been possible.
Sarna also agreed that the community aspect is what made the project so special.
“Just being part of something that brings your community together, I mean all these events down here that strengthens your community,” Sarna said. “That was important to me.”
The park has become an asset to the community with visitors coming from all over to enjoy the park and will continue to be a gathering place for future generations of families.