BULLARD — This town’s only park has undergone a gradual, major transformation into an attractive recreation area featuring colorful, modern and safe playground equipment, new picnic tables, resurfaced tennis courts, an improved pavilion and decorative fencing, with more improvements on tap.

The upgrade of O.L. Ferrell Park, carried out over the last couple of years, has slowly turned the park into a focal point of the town.

Read more about the project here. It's actually a great, rather in-depth story about how the project came together and how a few people were able to make it happen.

Other tidbits from the article.

• For many years, the city budget annually allocated $500 for park maintenance and improvement, a relatively small sum that did not go far toward funding expensive costs to improve the park and often went unspent.
• Looking back, Bullard resident Pam Frederick says she was naïve in 2003 when she started selling fountain soft drinks at festivals and conducting other small money-making activities in the belief that she could raise enough funds to “fix” the park. She got a boost when someone told her a group of mothers had earlier gotten together and tried to develop a park fund through fund-raising that netted $2,000-$3,000.
• The park project was one of the reasons Ms. Frederick decided to run for the City Council. “I felt like I could get a little farther ahead on the project as a council person,” said Ms. Frederick, now in her fifth year as a council member.
• In the meantime, Ronald E. Fix, then city engineer, and Mark Priestner, an urban planner, informed Mrs. Frederick that grant funds are available through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for park projects and offered to help apply.
• She explained that the first phase is a $100,000 project, which is being funded with a $50,000 Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant that requires a matching local investment of donated labor and supplies worth $50,000.
• One of the most noticeable improvements has been installation of a recently purchased playground entertainment system with ADA compliant material underneath the playground equipment to create a safe fall zone. The new playground system has swing sets, including a baby swing, slides and other equipment.
• “It has been truly a community project because we’ve had quite a bit of in-kind service from contractors helping us out,” said Larry Morgan, City Planner.
• State officials recently informed the city that it is eligible to apply for a second grant to further develop the park. “We are definitely interested (in securing more state funding); it’s going to be an ongoing project,” Ms. Frederick said, explaining that improvements to be proposed for second phase funding are still to be decided.
• She is pleased with how much has been accomplished so far. “It’s a slow process; you have to do it one little piece at the time, but (the park) has finally become like it should have been. I just wanted it to be a place where families wanted to be and kids could play and there was something for them to do,” Ms. Frederick said.