NEW SIGN LOOKS GREAT!!

The sign that was built by Wil Douglas is up and looks great! Thank you, to Rob Beckwith of Boise along with Larry Lewis and Logan Manley of Meridian Home Depot!

These guys dug the holes for the sign down two feet in Kuna top soil (otherwise known as rock). The ends were placed in concrete, and wind tested immediately by forty five mile per hour gusts! The next day it was still here! 

All of the materials for the sign were donated by the Meridian Home Depot, and the sign was built by Wil in about two days. It ended up weighing about four hundred pounds and had to be lifted out of the trailer by five people. Being bulky and heavy made one brave volunteer (Rob) the lucky person to get under the sign while lifting to steady it out of the trailer. Ever see a trailer go down the road all by itself? That is exactly what happened when all of the weight from both sign and Rob got to the end of the flat bed! You should have seen the look on his face during that maneuver! 

Luckily, no harm was done to Rob and we all got a wake up call on chocking trailer wheels.

Removing old natural rock to replace it with new rock! Yeah, that makes sense!

 A bunch of hard workers showed up for the clean out, construction, and pour of the ramp footings. It was cold, but that actually felt good as the work was hard and tedious wrapping all of the wire and rebar. 

 Following a long but encouraging day of work, we were finally able to start the first pour. I don't think there was a person there who wasn't asking why we removed perfectly good solid rock - put there by nature 50,000 years ago - and replaced it with something man made and designed to last maybe 200 years! Thankfully, we just enjoy hard work. 

 The footings turned out great, and after a minor setback on the inspection of the wall rebar, we were able to begin finishing the wall forms and getting them poured as well.

 If anyone ever tells you that concrete work is nothing - promptly kick them in the *ss!

Everyone worked theirs off on this job, and it turned out pretty good. Even after the work was done on the pour, there was still more work to do with the removal of the forms, and still more cleanup. 

 Some great volunteer effort went into this phase of the project;

 Frank Baeta showed up and worked hard to unload the forms donated by Arrow Construction Supply, along with Todd Lee who was sprinting in and out of the trenches most of the afternoon to grab panels and stitch them into place.

 Jack Graham helped out every day on the project, wiring rebar and helping with the pour on both the footings and the walls.

 Todd McGilivray brought his son Ryan over to the project, and between the two of them put in a lot of effort working on the forms and cleanup.

 John Schull went through a couple of hammers (literally) ripping apart the forms and concrete stuck in them.

 Wil Douglas helped out tremendously, bustin his back on a lot of different parts of the project, and his brother Ben helped out too. 

 All of these people helped out, and their work is very appreciated! A big hats off to the crew from Structural Contractors who made the work look easy. Skip Hoseley and Jesse Hoseley along with Garret "Pig Farmer" continue to make this project a smooth transition. Not only have they been helpful in the work load, but their advice and equipment supply for the project has been a huge help! 

 A special thank you to the people at G&B Concrete for the donated delivery to the project, along with a generous contribution from Ray Russell and Frank Johnson, who worked all day to remove the old rock and debris from the site - haul it off - and return with clean backfill donated by Busy Bee Sand and Gravel! 

 Home Depot was on hand with donations of materials and labor, and Handi Trucking contributed greatly with a steady supply of concrete. Joe Stear came by to make sure the handrail he is planning was going to work, and even the Ada County Sheriff showed up to offer his supervisory skills! It was a great day for the community of Kuna!

 The ramp is almost complete, and THANK YOU to everyone who has been helping to make it a success!

      

 

 

    

Putting Up The Walls

Home Depot Was Back on April 15th

It was cold and raining but everyone worked hard and did a great job!

April 8th

A Big Thank You! - to everyone who showed up and helped out! The rain threatened all day, but held off until the end when we were finishing up. Channel 2 News showed up, and put everyone and the project on the five and ten o'clock news. Home Depot came out in force and the Lions Club was out to show their usual awesome community contribution and effort! 

I can't say enough about the contributions made on Wednesday by the individual people themselves. A lot can be said about a person who volunteers on a cold rainy day for something that is a good cause, and that list is one presented with great appreciation. Everyone contributed tirelessly, so in no particular order, we would like to thank;

Lisa Solotky

Loren Rieb

Larry Lewis

Logan Manly

Skip Hoseley 

Jesse Hoseley

Garret - Pig Farmer*

Mikey 

Jack Graham

Rob Beckwith

Cathy Douglas

Wil Douglas

John Stear

Layne Saxton

Frank Baeta

Ryan McGilivray

Todd McGilivray 

Rachelle McGilivray 

John Shull

Walt Douglas

 * may not be his actual name.

Tremendous appreciation goes out to Home Depot of Meridian for their contribution of materials and labor.

The Lions Club of Kuna, for their extremely generous contribution of support and labor throughout the project.

John Stear of Kuna Welding, for his generous contribution of rock removal equipment and labor.

Dave Browning of Kuna Lumber, for his contribution of lumber for the footing forms.

Paul's Market, for supplying food and snacks to the volunteers.

Rental Connection of Kuna, for supplying the equipment needed for much of the project.

G & B Concrete, for timely delivery of concrete materials to the site.

Joe and Sean Stear of Kuna Machine Shop, for their contribution to the handrail for the ramp. 

Arrow Construction Supply, for the donation of form rentals. 

Glenn Walker of Architecture Designs Plus for the drafts of the ramp.

Robert St Michelle of JUB Engineering for the footing and wall design.

Jim Coslett of Rock Solid Civil Engineering for his help in negotiating the permit and review process plus Civil Engineering support for this project. 

Channon Romo, Midge Kline, Tina Louie, Michelle White, and Chance Heron of ACHD for their support and help in the expediting of this project review and permits.

Thank you to the City of Kuna for waiving the fees to the permit and inspection.

 

The ADA project is about a quarter of the way complete. We have a lot to do, but we also have a good group of people to help us. Between weather storms and supply lines, we should still be able to complete the ramp on time. The ramp has been a good lesson for us. When we begin the in-ground dugouts, we will know a lot more about what we are getting into. We can't wait for that!! 

Got Hammered!!

We had a generous donation of a 32,000 lb Rock Hammer show up on Saturday, and rock out the park! This machine was only available to us on Saturday, and with the fuel and delivery- plus operator and machine being donated - we couldn't pass this up. The alternative was having all of the kids practice batting by swinging rock hammers!

The machine was pretty loud and disrupted the games across the street at the ball park, but we were able to stop for the National Anthem and the introductions of each team and players. Our apologies to the annoyed parents attending the games, but hopefully the final result will outweigh the inconvenience. All of our kids on the redevelopment committee play on different teams, so we figured we helped the ones that won with a well placed distraction!

Hammer Time!!

Gonna hit it with the Rock Hammer. We received a very generous donation of a 32,000 lb machine, a person has come forward and offered to hammer out the rock for us.
Looks like we are going to be back on track after making some changes to the overall design of the footing and retainer wall. Now we just need to re-cut the rebar to fit the new design - but no big deal there.
We will be installing a 4 x 6' sign to illustrate the park project to the few people in town who might not know about it. We received permission from the City Council to build the sign on March 17, but never got to it due to conflictions with the ADA ramp construction. We hope to have it in for opening day, April 4th.