ELIDA — On May 14, the Johnny Appleseed Metropolitan Park District will officially open a new park, one that was created thanks to a final act of benevolence from a dying woman, according to district Director Kevin Haver.
“A lady by the name of Carole Hermon contacted me, and she had terminal cancer,” Haver said. “She wanted to do something in honor of her parents and the Elida community.”
Hermon grew up on Stevick Road before working in finance on both the East and West coasts. Before her death, she wanted to give back to the community where she grew up.
“She left half of her estate to the Park District Foundation of Allen County, which is the supporting arm of the Johnny Appleseed Park District,” Haver said. “That came out to approximately $604,000. With the permission of the executor of the estate, I used part of that gift for a local match for a Clean Ohio Fund grant, and we were able to get in another $464,000 of outside money for the acquisition and development of this park.”
Thanks to those infusions of money, very few tax dollars went into the creation of the 71-acre Hermon Woodlands Metro Park at 485 N. Wapak Road, with 68 of those acres consisting of wooded areas with two miles of wide nature trails.
“It was Carole’s desire to have a passive, relaxing park, with not a lot of hard development, and we’ve done our best to honor that,” Haver said.
One new element in the park will be what the district refers to as the “ImagiNature Children’s Playscape,” which incorporates natural elements into play areas, rather than installing traditional play equipment.
“We have eight or 10 different areas consisting of everything, including something as simple as climbing on downed trees, combined with a lot of rocks,” Haver said. “There’s an area where they can swing on a rope suspended from trees, and there’s an area where they can get right down by the edge of the creek and look for salamanders, crayfish, animal tracks and that sort of thing.”
The park will fill a large need for American Township, the most populous township in the county.
“They had zero green space prior to this, so this was sorely needed in that part of the county,” Haver said. “This is less than a mile from Indianbrook and less than a mile from Laurel Oaks, so it will definitely be a popular park area.”
