Significant upgrades and new features are coming to Allardt’s Bruno Gernt Park thanks to community donations.
Park Committee Member Rebecca Day said because the park is not owned by the city, it is ineligible for most grants. She said this makes funding difficult to come by. Day said thanks to the community stepping up, the park has new benches and picnic tables, a new entrance, and more improvements to come.
“I’ll hear a read about a little community having a movie night in the park,” Day said. “And I thought, ‘Well, why can’t we do things like that?’ So, that’s what we’re working toward, just having a place where our awesome people can just gather in our great little space.”
Day said the park’s one-way entrance that led directly onto Highway 52 was a safety hazard. She said the entrance was moved and the committee has plans to replace the park’s worn-out signage, add new grills and trash cans, and pave a walking track around the park’s perimeter.
“We just started small,” Day said. “You know, we wanted to get a few benches to put around our new playground equipment, and that just turned out great. We have five benched now and four new picnic tables that have completely come through donations from families in Allardt and just families, you know, that have ties to Allardt.”
She said in the next several months, she expects a new retaining border to be installed around the playground to keep the sand from spilling out. Day said a Music Night and Fun Run has been scheduled for late July to showcase some of the park’s exciting upgrades.
“There’s two shelters,” Day said. “You know, covered shelters that you can rent for birthday parties. There’s a lot of birthday parties, family reunions, there’s lots of picnics.”
She said thousands of people come from miles around to attend the annual Great Pumpkin Festival each fall and she looks forward to people from across the state of Tennessee getting their first looks at the reimagined space.
Day is Bruno Gernt’s great great-great-grandaughter. He came from Germany to develop areas in the Upper Cumberland.
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