BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. (KERO) — A park in Bakersfield that has brought memories and a sense of family for some has now found an owner to take care of it.
- 3GActivities adopts Saunders Park to revitalize community engagement and pride.
- Frankie Sutton, CEO of 3G Activities, has personal ties to the park from his childhood.
- The park has seen a decline in family gatherings due to neighborhood changes.
- Monthly events, like story time and food distribution, aim to bring families back to the park.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Meet Frankie Sutton as he blows out a candle at just 1 year old with his birthday party held at Saunders Park.
Frankie Sutton said, "This was the first park I came to as a child, my grandpa has been coming here since the 70's so it's very traditional."
Now, 29 years later, he saw the need to take care of the park that's been a part of his life and to him has a special meaning.
Frankie Sutton continued, "Family, friends, when it comes to just coming together, Saunders Park, it means a lot. Just for the simple fact that this is where these core values have came from." It's all due to his grandfather and family giving him fond memories at Saunders Park.
Frankie Sutton reflected, "Not too many people can say that they play horse with their grandparents or got to hang out with a lot of uncles and friends."
But over the years, Saunders Park has gone through some tough times. Located on Palm Street next to Highway 99, the neighborhood has changed, and less families are holding birthday parties and coming together.
Frankie Sutton noted, "It changed with a lot of the new parks coming in also some of the homeless population that is here."
So Sutton decided to do something about it. With his nonprofit 3G Activities, he adopted the park under the city's "Adopt a Park" program.
This program recruits, trains, and supports individuals and groups who want to take an active role in keeping our parks healthy and clean for the entire community. The goal is to build community pride and ownership around every neighborhood park in Bakersfield.
Frankie Sutton explained, "First Saturday of the month we do story time in the park, where we bring our guest readers to read books of their choice and the correlating activities to those books, and we also have our food distribution." His inspiration, his grandfather, shares with me how proud he is of his grandson.
Rudy Morales said, "I'm very proud of my grandson he's my first grandson and yeah that's my baby." As he's been coming to the park since the late 70's and hasn't seen anything like this before, Rudy Morales remarked, "It's changed a lot I know that the park has and it looks good better than when it did." While progress has been made, the work at Saunders Park is not done.
Frankie Sutton stated, "This is still a safe place this is still a great park to come to and this is still where you build those memories."
Every first Saturday of the month from 3-4pm you can come down to Saunders Park for story time and free food distribution
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