Community Comes Together for Polly Wog Park

Published: 2022
By Claudia Andrade

For the past 70 years, Polly Wog Park, located behind K. William Harvey Elementary School in Ronan, has been an escape for countless students. However, the passage of time has seen weeds grow, branches break, and pathways become overgrown at the park, and then community support showed up. Lake County MSU Extension in cooperation with numerous organizations and individuals including the Ronan School District, Flathead Reservation MSU Extension, Salish and Kootenai College Extension, the Tribal Forestry Greenhouse Program, Mission Lawn and Landscape, the Tribal Forestry Department, and community volunteers ranging in age and experience, have come together to renew and further develop this space for future students to enjoy. Activities centered around environmental stewardship, social-emotional learning, and general exploration and curiosity have been facilitated at the park. And the learning goes beyond structured lessons. Various youth park cleanup days have been coordinated, with 191 students in the after-school program coming this year to help revitalize the park, plant native plants, remove dead or dying debris, and create bug hotels, while high school students worked to reconstruct broken bridges and picnic tables. The space has much history for the community and as Angel Popyk, Ronan After School Programs Coordinator stated, “We’re all really enjoying it. It’s so fun watching the joy in the kids.”