Newfield celebrates opening of long-awaited rec park

In 2006, the Town of Newfield purchased a farm from a local family with the hope of making it into a park. It wouldn’t be just any park; it would be one where the town’s children could play on baseball and soccer fields and basketball courts.

The hope was that the park, located at 80 Vankirk Rd., would serve as a resource for the town’s recreational sports programs. Hopefully, it could be used by youth and modified-level teams as field space, which was previously the responsibility of the Newfield Central School District.

After the town purchased the land, which was done by a voter referendum for the purpose of building a community park, the land was rented to a local organic farmer to grow corn.

In 2016, that changed, as community leaders and former Newfield Town Supervisor Jeff Hart sought to make the property what it was purchased to be: a community park.

This year, on Sept. 17, the ribbon was cut on a park the community can now use and be proud of. Town Supervisor Michael Allinger, other board members and community leaders were present as the board welcomed the community to its new park.

Even though the official opening was Sept. 17, the park and its fields have been used all summer. From recreational and youth teams to Newfield teenagers using the park for a pick-up basketball game, the vision of the park when it was bought in 2006 has come into focus.

Newfield Deputy Town Supervisor Christine Laughlin has seen the park go from a corn farm to a park under development and, now, a park in use.

“I grew up in Newfield; I’ve been here my whole life,” she said. “I knew the old farmer that used to own that land, so it’s cool for me to see it turn into something the community is using, and they are using it. “

In 2016, Norm Aidun approached the Town Board about taking the former farm and transforming it into the park it was intended to be.

Hart was the town supervisor at the time and on the board when the property was purchased. He didn’t stand in the way of Aidun, and the process of building a recreational park began.

“It’s finally here,” Aidun said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “You drive by and see 20 or 30 kids playing pick-up basketball, the kids playing soccer, and you have neighboring communities come down to play baseball with us. We don’t have to rely on the schools, and that was kind of the whole goal.”

Laughlin said Aidun was instrumental to getting the park built by organizing volunteers, getting equipment and obtaining grants to push the project over the finish line.

“He was the one that got the ball rolling, said, ‘I’m willing to do this, I want this to happen, let’s do this,’” she said. “He’s a resident and a parent who had kids in the program, knew the land was available and it was purchased for this purpose. He wanted to see it happen.”

Hart sought permission to build the park in 2016, and in 2017, Aidun worked with New York State Sen. Thomas O’Mara to secure a grant to cover the costs of building the fields.

In the spring of 2018, ground was broken on the fields and courts, and by spring of 2020, work was completed and the facilities were ready to be used.

There was just one problem: the pandemic enforced social distancing, closing parks throughout New York. The park was ready, but no one was able to use it.

“It wasn’t the construction part of it; it was the being able to open it,” Laughlin said. “We had our basketball courts in, and it was like, ‘Can’t we play on it?’ And the answer was no. We talked about having a ribbon cutting last year, and it just didn’t make sense.”

That’s what made the ribbon cutting a week and a half ago so special to those who fought to make the park a reality. An idea nearly two decades in the making had finally come to fruition.

The park had a soft open last spring, with no official ceremony, but using the facilities was allowed.

Laughlin, who is also the school nurse at Newfield Elementary School, said the town has already benefited from the park opening, but the school district is about to as well.

The goal of the Newfield youth sports program is to funnel kids who might be in elementary or middle school into the junior varsity and varsity sports programs. Now that those teams have a home field, it will take pressure off the school facilities to house those programs.

“That’s happened all along. Our basketball players start really young with our rec program coached by parents, as well as baseball, track, cross country, soccer and volleyball,” she said. “We didn’t have a park of our own like so many other towns. We had games held on school property. Now that we have a park where kids can play their games, the school can start using it also. The taxpayers in this town own it all, the school and the parks, so it’s a win-win.”

Although the ribbon-cutting ceremony was met with a lot of excitement by the town, the progress of the park is far from complete, according to Laughlin.

The Town Board has talked about building a pavilion, while Aidun mentioned during the ceremony the possibility of building bathrooms, dugouts on the baseball fields and even a dog-walking track.

The celebration is now because the park is finally open, but the work is far from done.

“We have parents out there with a boatload of kids doing soccer practice. We have teenagers that go down and play pick-up basketball,” Laughlin said. “I’ll drive by almost every night, and either someone is out there walking, playing basketball. Hopefully in the future, we’ll have a new pavilion. It’s still in the works, but it’s coming.”

During the ceremony, Aidun said that the park’s progress won’t come from grants or the Town Board exclusively but from volunteers. He said that was what helped get the park built in the first place, and it’s what will help improve it going forward.

“You see this and you see the kids running around and having a good time, and you see that parent right there coaching — that’s what makes this all happen,” he said. “If we don’t help out and volunteer our time, it’s going to turn into just a piece of property with some nice stuff on it that no one is using. You don’t have to donate your money. Just spend some time, bring your kids down here to shoot around and play and maybe coach a team.”

Aidun continued, “We’re there now.”

“We’re just asking for your help to keep it going in the future while old people like me move on to retirement homes and that kind of stuff,” he said.

Newfield Notes appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.