Location of proposed dog park:

600 McKinley Street
Creston, IA 50801

About this community:

Creston is a low-income but hard-working rural town of 8,000 in southwest Iowa. In 2019, Creston celebrated its sesquicentennial. The town has a beautiful restored depot and a large park (McKinley Park) with a lake. This park includes a swimming pool, skate park, playgrounds, historical village and disc golf course. The town continues to grow, and many families move to our town for the school choices and good jobs. Creston was home of Frank Phillips of Phillips 66 fame.

Why this community deserves a Bark for Your Park™ grant:

Creston deserves a Bark for Your Park™ grant because the story is inspiring. Local teen dog lover, Lexi Rounds, perished in a car crash early one icy morning on the way to work. She aspired to build a dog park and worked on a school project for that purpose. After her passing last December, her parents and others organized “Lexi’s Puppy Patch” to be a public dog park at McKinley Park. The park will serve thousands of dog owners in the community – many of them low-income and with no other means of providing safe socialization of dogs and owners. It will be located near a popular trail, a campground, and the city’s “pound.” Both animal rescue groups are on board. One of them, which volunteers to care for animals in the “pound,” will be able to use the dog park for exercise. There is immense local and national support.

How this community would use a Bark for Your Park™ grant:

It will be a well-built dog park, with many amenities and features. For example, the committee is securing estimates for a coated galvanized fence that will not rust and will survive Iowa’s four seasons better. It will have a watering place for each side (large and aggressive dogs vs. small and non-aggressive dogs). It will include fun obstacles like a donated retired fire hydrant. It will also include solar lighting to be used in the evenings year-round. It will have shaded areas for pets and humans. The committee has raised $35,000 already, but more is needed to make it an amazing facility deserving of Lexi’s name and meet their fiscally strapped town with a means to maintain the park for years to come. The grant funds will supplement raised money to build the best dog park possible by funding the above items.

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