2016 Miracle Park history

To be able to keep records of the process of creating the park, we will try to document as much as possible in our blog.  This is year #1. 

April 12, 2016 – first conversation... David Williams asked Warren Norman if anyone had thought about building a park in Rock Hill and about the feasibility of doing so.  

April 13, 2016 – Warren emailed Alice Davis about the conversation with David:  "At this point, I’m going to email you, David, Jamey (in my office) and possibly John Gettys, the chairman of the sports commission.  Jamey is very involved with the special needs community and helped start All American Athletes with Lesslie Pursley, and also started Just Joy at our church.  Both have grown and done well.

Our point is this: If we get the Foundation Board, the Sports Commission, the City, and private individuals interested in pursuing the building of a Miracle Field, I think this could happen."

More conversations happened after that.  David Williams knew that a coach at Rock Hill High School had worked on trying to get a field to Rock Hill in the past, so he wrote to David and Alice the email below  

Alice, 

I am blessed to work with a group of people who work hard in their lives to impact others.  Mr. Williams is a key piece in that.  I do not have a huge amount of information or planning done at this point.  I simply had a vision, asked a couple people where to start, and suddenly here we are.  I did contact Miracle League and got a "How To" packet of information sent over.  I have also researched field building and maintenance costs.  I have attached a cost breakdown from 2011, but it appears $250,000 is on the low end.  I have seen many more in the $1 - 1.5 Million range.  Labor fees greatly affect these numbers, so we may want to begin going to work on local companies and laying ground work in the near future.  Other things to consider are parking lots, restrooms, concessions, shade stations, and playgrounds.  The issue with existing structures that we would add on to is the lack of adequate facilities for a large population of people who have a need for assistance.  The job is large, and to do it right will take major funding.  All the more reason to get it done, in my opinion. 

David/Alice, 

I hope this conversation is the beginning something special.  I am certainly uneducated when it comes to the process for these things, but I also know that nothing worth doing
 comes easy.

Let me know where to move next.

Patrick Elias, M.Ed.
School Counselor (P-Sp)
Rock Hill High School
(803) 981-1307
PElias@rhmail.org

A few conversations and a summer later...

End of June 2016 – Foundation Board approved to move forward

August 25 2016 -- meeting at Millstone
Those involved:

Mary Poole:  YCBDSN Director

Alice Davis:  YCBDSN Board & Foundation Member-Special Education background

David Williams:  Sports Commission Member-initiated conversation on this topic

John Gettys:  Sports Commission Director-good to get Sports Commission involved with this project if possible

Mark Sexton:  City of Rock Hill PRT-has looked at this project in the past with individuals in town.

Jamey Dagenhart:  Helped start and runs All American Athletes & Just Joy Christian Ministry at First ARP

Patrick Elias:  Rock Hill High Baseball Coach-recently interested in pursuing this project

Warren Norman:  YCBDSN former board member/current Foundation member-Special Ed background.

David Linder: PRT department, runs leagues

This was a very excited and eager group at the meeting.  We felt it was best to move 
forward on this "field" we wanted to build, but we knew it could be much more than that.  Warren and David spoke about putting the field on property that already held a city park. The City liked that idea; the field needed to be renovated anyway.  So we moved forward with reaching out to Winthrop about possibly using their adjacent property to make this much larger and more impactful, with many more elements like multi-purpose fields and even a cafe! 

Email from Mark Sexton, PRT Department left us feeling excited:

From: "Sexton, Mark" <Mark.Sexton@cityofrockhill.com>
To: "Warren Norman" <wnorman@warrennormaninc.com>, "David Williams" <dwilliams@wfcorp.com>, "Alice Davis" <adavis@wfcorp.com>
Cc: "John Gettys" <John.Gettys@mortongettys.com>, "Jamey Dagenhart" <jdagenhart@warrennormaninc.com>, "Mary Poole Cell" <mpoole@yorkdsnb.org>, "Patrick Elias" <PElias@rhmail.org>, "Linder, David" <David.Linder@cityofrockhill.com>, "John Black" <jblack@picadvisors.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 7:26:22 PM
Subject: RE: Miracle Field Meeting

Good evening everyone.  As an fyi and follow-up, the Parks Commission discussed the Miracle Field tonight and it was received very well.  We have done some additional research on the fields and surface types etc. We also discussed with them about potentially utilizing Winthrop Park, which was also well received.  Looking forward to further updates.

Dec 2 2016 – Heard about FM’s efforts to build a $750,000 playground but we didn't let this hold us back.  We spoke to them and knew our community could use both of these.  We pushed forward with conversations with Winthrop University's Board of Directors on the use of the property.