Hundreds of community members gathered to celebrate the completion and dedication of the new Veterans Memorial and Community Park in Rockwood Saturday morning.
On Memorial Day in 2016, officials say two local veterans noted a half-demolished building on main street that sat next to where memorial day events were held each year. They say they created a grassroots committee full of Rockwood residents with the goal of replacing the area with a community park.
Now, exactly eight years later, those committee members officially dedicated the Rockwood Veterans Memorial and Community Park in a Memorial Day weekend ceremony.
“It’s a great feeling. I actually had tears in my eyes today a couple times. We had a lot of times when things got rough, and we weren’t sure if we were going to raise enough money. In doing that, we were just so successful and it’s a great feeling to be able to complete this project,” says Larry Mazer, one of the two veterans who came up with the idea to create the park.
Organizers say nearly 300 community members visited the ceremony, hearing from the committee, as well as representatives from the Rockwood Borough, Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development team, and the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies.
Committee member and event emcee Jim Marker says, “It really is the community that built this. The people who gave their time, money, the businesses, and people who donated are really what this park is all about.”
Mazer says he’s proud of the work done by the committee. “It was just a long period of time, we got to know each other very well, and a group of people who started out as volunteers ended up being really good friends over the project,” says Mazer.
Officials say they’re excited to see the park become a new staple in the community.
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