Okay, Dan, let me get this straight. We sent our information via the Harvest Home for me app.
You reviewed it here and now we're pre qualified officially.
That's helpful, very helpful. Holmelan's made easy. Harvest Bank ready to help.
Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for our community connection right here on Caine One, the one you trust. Beautiful day today, My goodness sakes, We've got our friends with Kittie Park in here. We've got Ken Johnson, chairman of the board. Also Ashley Caine, who's the campaign chairman. And who's this young man right here? Hey, there you go, he's the kid in Kittie Park today, right. First of all, Ken, nice turnout for the campaign kickoff
yesterday at the Richard Kaine YMCA. Kind of give us a little bit of the snaps as we kind of give an overview of what's going on and everything, didn't we sure?
Yeah, you know, two years ago we decided that Kitty Park needed a complete refurbishment. So for the last two years we've kind of been working behind the scenes on a campaign, a capital campaign to raise some money to refurbish the Kittie Park. Well, yesterday we actually kicked off the public phase of that campaign, so hopefully we've We've got a two point seven.
Million dollar campaign going on.
We've most raised two point two million of that so far, so we're still looking for another five hundred thousand dollars to finish off our campaign.
Now, actually, this is the first time you've been a campaign chairwoman. Tell us a little bit about how you got involved and how this is going so far for you.
Yes, this is definitely a new thing for me, but I've had such a great time with Ken and Kent. Strumman's been our consultant to lead us through this charge and we've had a great campaign team. My kids have been involved, so that's it's been so fine. We couldn't say no, just based on the heartwarming memories that we have from my kids growing up at Kitty Park and
my husband growing up at Kitty Park. He has tons of stories about cousins coming in from town from Philadelphia and they would go to Kitty Park and they thought that was just such a great family time. And we have that to offer here in Bartlesville now part.
Of this seventy what ninety year history.
Yeah, this year will be our seventy ninth season to be open there at Kitty Park.
Now, you spent several summers working there as a young man, didn't.
Yeah, I started.
I was born and raised here in Bartlesville, and I started working at Kitty Park when I was thirteen and ended up being the manager down there in high school, which was kind of interesting, and worked there till I was twenty and then I got married and went and started my professional life from there.
But Kitty Park just held some any memories for you being a you know, a Varsal homegrown kid and working there and everything else, like this kind of hung with you.
Oh yeah, you know.
When I was asked to get back involved about two and a half three years ago, there's no way I could have said no. It's such a fun experience. And to see the smile on the kids' faces every day when they come down there and enjoy the park is just heartwarming.
It's got to be ashlynd. You guys had the little ones flipping the numbers yesterday. That was a little bit of something that was kind of a special treaty yesterday.
I think that added definitely a fun dynamic. And the kids, they you know, they love feeling involved, And I think that was kind of the point of having co chairmen of the Kiddie Park Board be kids. Just that's the purpose of the park to bring joy to kids and families, and so it was a good way to get them involved and make them feel like they were really making a difference for the now.
Actually, how can people make a contribution.
We've got a QR code that we can pass out. We've got some fundraiser brochures that are really really cool. If you get a chance to look at one of those, it's kind of like a storybook that gives the whole history of the Kitty Park from when we started to where we are now. You can go on the Kitty Park's Facebook page or social media page and there'll be a link on there, or you can get a hold of one of the members of the campaign team or the Kitty Park Board and we'd love to assist you in that.
Yeah, when the fund traised, what are they going to go toward? As far as Kitty Park, I know there's like five or six things we enubratd yesterday.
Yeah, Well, you know, it's a complete refurbishment of the park all the way from the park beautification, which means that the new asphalt, the new fences around everything to safety. We have gone through every ride or going through every ride making sure that you know, the.
All the rides are safe.
They are ready to go, and our goal is to have these rides available in the park ready for the next seventy five years so.
That we continue to build memories.
Right now, we have great grandparents that are bringing their kids down there that went to the park when they were children, so you know, we want to just keep building on that.
Now. We were talking beforehand, how intricate is it on the train itself. You got it down to the last little nut and bolt, don't you.
Well, yeah, we completely rebuilt the train this summer or this over the winter.
We took it down completely.
Every nut, every bolt has been replaced on it, all the springs, all the wheels, everything's been replaced.
It's been powder coated.
All the brass has been polished on it. So when we roll it out in May, it'll look like a brand new train.
A little while ago, the city give you guys a little extra space to have expanded.
They well, I got a little ambitious a couple of years ago and went to the City and asked them for the area just north of the existing park, and they were gracious enough to lease us out space as.
Well, and so we've expanded.
We've added nine new rides at the kiddie Park over the last two years. Every ride that we've added is what we call a family friendly ride, which means that now bigger kids adults can ride the rides as well. So we've added a new roller coaster, We've added what they call Disney dragons, we have a slide coming in this summer. We've you know, we're rebuilding our bumper cars right now. So the bumper car building hopefully will start
being erected this week. Hopefully it won't be quite finished by May third when we opened, but by the time schools out we hope to have it up and run in as well.
Oh my goodness sake, this is just gonna be so much fun.
My favorite part is the Ferris Will. We've got a Ferris Will that was featured in a Hallmark movie that Ken was able to get a hold of, and so that that's my favorite new thing that we're going to add.
Wow, that's incredible, you know, so both of you think you've seen it all at Kitty Park. You ain't seen nothing yet, and this summer it's going to be the one. You just got to come in and see it all. I said to Ken before we got on the air, says, you know, I guess this is going to be it for the next seventy nine years. And I started thinking about, No, it ain't going to be next year. You just wait, you wait.
You know. Fortunately, the.
People of Bartlesville have been so gracious and donated money. You know, we are a nonprofit organization. We don't get any subsidies from the city. It's not owned by anybody, so we have a group of volunteers that actually run the park. So we survive on ticket sales and donations and that's how we survive. So as long as people continue to help us out, we will continue to grow the park and make it a very nice place to be, very inexpensive for kids to come down and enjoy.
You just got about a minute or so left. I want to make sure everybody gets kind of like your final say and go.
Ahead, Ashley, Well, I just offer that we'd love to have you volunteer. As Ken said, that's one way you can get involved. You can donate to our campaign. You can share the word and just spread the message, tell people what's going on, exciting things that are happening at Kitty Park. And this doesn't just stay local, because we've got people statewide, across the state, across I think eleven other states that visited last year that we hope to
get back. So just spread the word and be excited to be a portion and to be part of this effort for the Kiddie Park.
Ken last words, wel like Ashley said, we had over thirty four thousand people come through the park last year and we were closed fourteen days due to heat or rain last year, So that's a lot of people that come through from eleven different states, which if you think about it, that's twenty percent of the United States people have at least visited there in last year. So come out see us and help us make twenty twenty five even better than twenty twenty four.
All Right, folks, the challenges on, let's do it. Thank you very much for being with us here on our community Connection program.