The community can and should do better

SEELEY LAKE - The fine reporting effort by Andi Bourne on the Seeley Lake Community Park reveals how badly we have failed as a community in maintaining this valuable asset.

Back in the eighties we played a LOT of baseball at the community park. There were four different leagues using the park: a pee wee, a women’s fastpitch, a men’s fastpitch and a co-rec slowpitch. The park was teeming with players and spectators virtually every night of the week and on the weekends for most of the summer. Visiting teams came from Deer Lodge, Clinton, Avon, Helmville, Drummond, Philipsburg and Lincoln and the end-of-the season tournaments filled area motels and campgrounds. People loved for us to host tournaments because it gave participants a chance to make it a family camping experience as well.

Good things happened. It gave young folks something to do. It brought the area communities together and it was very good for the local businesses. But that is gone because the local business community let it slip away. It is unrealistic to expect the Seeley Lake Elementary School and Park Boards to maintain the facilities and promote activities which use them.

We can and should do better.