The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PRESCOTT – A $5,000 donation from the Yancey P. Winans Testamentary Trust to the Prescott Joint Parks and Recreation District (PJPRD) will help provide much-needed playground equipment in the Prescott Park.

PJPRD co-manager and administrative assistant Yvonne Jackson said the district applied for the grant last year and received $1,000 to upgrade its park and play equipment. She said those funds were used to purchase pool noodles, water pogo sticks and to put a new water basketball backstop and net in the pool area.

This year, the district applied for $10,000 to “upgrade and enhance” the park’s playground equipment and received a check for $5,000 last Friday. Jackson said the PJPRD board will decide how to spend the funds, which must be used in 2015 or returned to the trust. She said there are plenty of options on how to spend the money.

The district had fenced off a small area of the park to provide a safe play area for toddlers and filled it with play equipment that they purchased from Wal-Mart. Jackson said that equipment had to be removed because it didn’t meet insurance requirements, and the fenced area is now empty. The park slide also had to be removed because it no longer meets insurance guidelines. Jackson said slides are now required to have a platform on the top, and there are requirements specifying how steep the percentage of grade drop can be.

Jackson said she would love to see a zip line installed. “They have some really neat ones now that use springs and are very safe,” she said. Jackson said PJPRD has also applied to the Pacific Power Community Grant for funds to help with playground upgrades, but that they haven’t heard back from them yet.

The Yancey P. Winans Testamentary Trust, administered by the Baker Boyer National Bank, meets needs in the Walla Walla area and was established in 1988. “The thing I feel is important to constituents is that we (PJPRD) want to enhance the enjoyment for everyone using the park and the pool without creating an additional burden to taxpayers. That’s why we are so proactive in researching available funds and make the effort to go through the often long and laborious grant application process,” said Jackson.