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		Points of View Tammy Racine June 3, 2005 Text © 2005 Tammy Racine. Published with Permission. Photos © 2005 Michele Anderson.

Improving Terrace Park

By Tammy Racine, student, B.R.I.D.G.E. Alternative High School*

HANCOCK -- Working on the walking trail at Terrace Park has been fun. We all had a pretty good time.

We've been working on it since last September -- cutting down shrubs, moving rocks, removing small dead trees, raking woodchips onto the trail, building two bridges for the trail. And that's not all. We will be putting in benches next school year. I myself have designed two bench ideas to go around two trees, one on the trail and one in the park. This park will be great when everything is all finished.

Trail building is fun as well as work! B.R.I.D.G.E. students Stephanee Monette, left, and Tia Ponnikas, right, "bury" guest author Tammy Racine in gravel during a break in trail building at Terrace Park in Hancock. (Photo © 2005 Michele Anderson)

B.R.I.D.G.E. Alternative High School is not the only group of people helping. We did the trail and that, but kids in the community have been also policing the park to prevent other kids from messing it up. They have also made ramps and such for trying to get a skate park in the park. Our teacher Cathy Hill, the rest of B.R.I.D.G.E. High School and I also think it is a good idea.

The skate park could be assembled in the tennis court because hardly anyone plays tennis at the park now. We need a place for kids to run around and play and have fun. With our own enforcement, we would make sure that our activities don't disturb the neighbors. We would also agree to enforcing a curfew on the park. Saying it closes at midnight is the best option for a curfew.

B.R.I.D.G.E. student and guest author Tammy Racine and her friend Chris Duefrene, a former B.R.I.D.G.E. student, participated in the ribbon cutting and opening of the Terrace Park Walking Trail in east Hancock on June 1, 2005.* (Photo © 2005 Michele Anderson)

A skate park would honestly be perfect for the park. The kids would have somewhere to go, and they would have a good way to stay out of trouble. In addition, I know many people that would police the area so nothing would happen to it. My teacher Cathy Hill thinks that if we can get the support of the parents of Hancock we could have a real chance at this if we were to propose it to the City Council.

If you are interested in this idea, I urge you to contact either Cathy Hill or me at B.R.I.D.G.E. Alternative High School: 482-0828.

We're trying to turn it around here -- letting kids have fun and enjoy themselves instead of being told they have to leave wherever they are. We need somewhere to hang out in Hancock. Cathy recognized this, and she helped us out by getting a $1,000 Service Learning grant to fix up the park. We are trying to prevent letting this place go downhill like a lot of other places.

I would like to thank you all for listening to what I had to say, and I will ask you this: Just give us a chance to turn this place around.

Editor's Notes:  * B.R.I.D.G.E. stands for "Becoming Responsible Individuals Dedicated to the Goals of Education." Guest author Tammy Racine is a student at the B.R.I.D.G.E. Alternative High School in Hancock and a resident of Tamarack City. Tammy says her favorite classes at B.R.I.D.G.E. are Social Awareness, World Geography and Art. Tammy 's goals in life include graduating from B.R.I.D.G.E. (which she calls "the best school in the Copper Country"), moving to New York and going to a community college where she can follow her dream and get into the music business (as a music producer/ recorder). Her teacher Cathy Hill initiated the Terrace Park Walking Trail project last fall.  Read about the building of the Terrace Park Walking Trail in east Hancock in our June 3, 2005, article, "B.R.I.D.G.E. Alternative High School students build Hancock trail."

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