Field of Dreams seeks 1,300 volunteers to build playground
WEST MELBOURNE — During a six-week stretch in 1992, a "Community Build" army of 17,452 volunteers donated 84,808 man-hours building animal enclosures, gazebos, boardwalks and bridges to help launch the new Brevard Zoo in Viera.
Hoping to tap that philanthropic spirit, Space Coast Field of Dreams officials are recruiting 1,300 volunteers to construct a customized playground for special-needs children next month at West Melbourne Community Park.
The five-day charitable construction campaign takes place from Nov. 11-15. Participants will labor from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. crafting a 13,000-square-foot playground from recycled plastic lumber featuring a zipline ride, a space shuttle-themed equipment station for kids ages 2-5, and a fish camp-themed equipment station for kids ages 5-12.
These recreational stations will feature roofs, slides, bridges, swings, monkey bars, tunnels, balance beams, ladders and the like.
"Folks are going to come out, use their basic construction skills, and they are going to build something really cool. Every day's got a mission. The first day, you're digging holes. The second day, you're framing the forts. The third day, you're starting to do more detail work," said Milo Zonka, Field of Dreams treasurer, standing near the future playground site.
"It's basically one ginormous Lego set," Zonka said.
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Embraer, General Electric, Home Depot, Target, Winn-Dixie and the city of West Melbourne will send teams of employees to the work site at the northern end of West Melbourne Community Park. That's where Field of Dreams, a state-of-the-art sports complex for disabled athletes, is taking shape amid a 5-acre construction zone.
The groundbreaking ceremony occurred in November, fueled by a $2 million Florida Department of Economic Opportunity grant. Today, the green and brown baseball field with red dugouts and yellow benches is nearly finished, and workers will soon install foul poles. Also visible from Minton Road is a shade-providing shelter and a concession stand-restroom building.
About 15,000 square feet of inch-thick recycled rubber comprises the baseball field's soft, spongy surface. Underneath, Zonka said workers had to pour 11 concrete slabs so the ball field would drain properly. "Just the drainage cost more than my first house," he joked.
The Florida Legislature has allotted $1 million for construction of a soft-surface soccer field and a soft-surface basketball court. Workers spent the past week crafting concrete footers for the future soccer field's shade structures.
After next month's community build, Field of Dreams leaders hope to wrap up remaining work across the facility within a few weeks. A soft opening featuring Santa Claus could occur in December, followed by a grand opening ceremony in January, said Amy Boyson, a Field of Dreams board member and Waste Management community affairs manager.
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Leathers & Associates, the Ithaca, New York, firm that guided the Brevard Zoo Community Build, will oversee the Field of Dreams project. The company has led community construction of more than 3,000 playgrounds in all 50 states.
The 1992 Brevard Zoo Community Build constructed much of Paws On and the Latin American animal loop across a trio of work shifts, extending from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. At an estimated $8 per hour, the volunteers contributed $678,464 in free labor, zoo records show. Those workers sunk 800 poles into the ground and gobbled up 20,217 meals.
About 250 to 400 volunteers will work per day on the Field of Dreams project, Zonka said. He said a "little village" will bolster the effort by offering construction tools, food, child care and other services. The Brevard County Professional Firefighters Association donated money for a fire truck-shaped play apparatus in the age 5-12 playground, and firefighters will help build it, he said.
Field of Dreams is leasing for $1 per year the northern end of the West Melbourne Community Park — which remains closed to the public amid a major overhaul.
Since 1960, this 18-acre recreation area had been operated by Brevard County as Max K. Rodes Park. Attractions included a manmade swimming lake, ball fields, a community center and basketball courts.
Voters approved county parks referendums in 2000 and 2006, and construction began in 2008 on a new 134-acre Max K. Rodes Park — more than seven times larger than the original — off the terminus of Flanagan Avenue, roughly a half-mile to the west. That regional park opened in 2011. The same year, county officials donated the old Rodes Park to the city of West Melbourne.
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Development activity underway across the park:
• The city is wrapping up $1.25 million in infrastructure work, including stormwater drainage, water, sewer, electrical and parking lot construction.
City Manager Scott Morgan said drainage was the chief issue; in fact, crews filled in the decades-old swimming hole and dug a new retention pond.
• The West Melbourne City Council has allocated $225,000 to design a skate park, a children's splash park near the pond, and a future amphitheater featuring a raised bandshell and grassy lawn, Morgan said.
He hopes the amphitheater will host festivals, food trucks and entertainment events.
"That's something that we just don't have space for in our existing city facilities now. So it opens up a whole window of recreational offerings," Morgan said.
• Promise in Brevard, a nonprofit dedicated to employing special-needs adults, plans to build a café-bakery and ice cream shop near the pond's western shore, next to the future splash park.
Promise in Brevard Executive Director Betsy Farmer likened the future 5,000-square-foot facility to a Panera Bread with a community room. She said the eatery will employ 25 to 30 special-needs adults.
"The idea was that we would have this amazing place for not only our Promisers to work, but to provide this really cool place with Wi-Fi and everything for people to hang out, and have lunch, and go out on the back deck and do remote-control boats," she said.
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Farmer said the café-bakery and ice cream shop will cost nearly $1 million to build. Her organization has neither funding nor a construction timeline set. "Who's our secret millionaire?" she asked.
Mike Klenotich is vice president of Field of Dreams and store manager of the West Melbourne Winn-Dixie. His 16-year-old daughter, Brittany, has cerebral palsy. Klenotich and about 30 other parents previously organized Friday night softball outings at the Palm Bay West Little League ball fields, but he said those diamonds were poorly suited for disabled players. And the softball outings died off.
"Every special-needs child's like a snowflake: There's not one the same. Everyone's different. And every child has a different disability. There's different functions of that disability. So it's going to be very challenging, and we're still going to have parents questioning, 'Do you have this? Do you have that?'" Klenotich said.
"We're not going to be able to please everybody. But we're going to try our damndest to do it." he said.
On Dec. 15, Promise in Brevard officials hope to close on a $15.8 million Florida Housing Finance Corp. funding package to build a residential campus for 126 special-needs adults near the Hammock Landing shopping complex, about 1.5 miles south of Field of Dreams. Farmer said construction should begin shortly afterward and take 14 months to complete. She hopes residents start moving in by spring 2017.
Farmer said the Promise campus and Field of Dreams will set a benchmark model for cities across Florida and the United States.
"There is really nothing like this in the state. And it really is going to set a precedent of how a community can rally around this population, and provide a place for them to be employed and have activities and physical exercise," Farmer said.
"My goal, my dream, would be to take this model and help other communities replicate it. If we can do this in a little tiny town with 20,000 people, you can do it in Atlanta. You can do it in Dallas."
Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1 on Twitter
Volunteers wanted
Space Coast Field of Dreams is organizing a playground "Community Build" from Nov. 11-15 at West Melbourne Community Park, 3000 Minton Road.
Work shifts are 8 a.m. to noon, 12:30 to 5 p.m., and 5:30 to 9 p.m.
Children ages 10-13 must remain within arm's reach of their parent or guardian. Children ages 14-17 cannot use power tools. Volunteers ages 18 and older can can work independently with all tools.
To sign up, visit brevardfieldofdreams.org
Promise in Brevard groundbreaking
A groundbreaking ceremony for Promise in Brevard's $15.8 million residential campus for special-needs adults takes place at 11 a.m. Nov. 9.
The site is off Norfolk Parkway, west of the Carmike West Melbourne 12 movie theater. The nonprofit will build a trio of three-story apartment buildings for 126 residents and a 13,000-square-foot clubhouse.
Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey will emcee the event. For information, visit promiseinbrevard.com.