Schafer State Park has a brand-new and stylish large picnic shelter for its group campground, thanks to the industrious work of dedicated volunteers — with something of a big assist from storms that ravaged the park several years ago.
Spearheaded by the group Schafer Neighborhood Adopt a Park (SNAP), the construction project began on paper in 2009, after storms in 2007 and 2009 took down numerous trees throughout the park, located eight miles outside of Brady. Some of that timber was salvaged and later milled and dried by members of SNAP, specifically for the new cedar structure. The timber had been stored at the park warehouse until it was needed this summer.
“They milled the lumber from the park, so it’s a cool little project,” said Lake Sylvia State Park Ranger Darrell Hopkins, who also supervises Schafer. “It will be a beautiful addition to the park when the camping season rolls around again.”
The structure was completed last week with final inspection this week. After that, it will be ready for use by late-season campers and is also available to rent for group picnics, reunions or weddings.
Four members of SNAP were stalwarts of the project: Mike Sinclair, Max Muller, Wayne Kingery and Rob Mills, with lots of help from other group members, park staff and a significant monetary donation from the Friends of Lake Sylvia and Schafer, another local parks volunteer group.
“This is our park and we kind of like it,” said Sinclair, who was working on the project last week and whose father was a ranger at Schafer State Park from 1962 to 1982. “We’ve been working hard on it for the past couple of months.”
“We wanted to build this building with all of the lumber coming from the park,” said Muller, who milled the lumber at his mill with a partner. “We have been very adamant and particular and every stick has come out of the park to build this building.”
Only the plywood siding came from a commercial source.
“We got a heck of a deal from Olympic Plywood in Shelton,” Sinclair said.
The park has $3,000 in the cement, and the park paid for the metal part of the roofing and the weather-resistant clear plastic siding — to let more light in at the gables. The park has $7,000 in total in the building, but Muller figured the building overall would have cost $80,000 to $90,000 to complete without volunteer and community donations.
Muller and Sinclair cite their long family ties to the park and neighborhood as their reasons to contribute. The Schafer brothers — a historic local timber family — were his great-great uncles.
“It is a sense of pride,” Muller said. “What stirred us was that the two buildings over day-use side were built from material in the park by residents in the 1930s and ’40s and that was their legacy. Those buildings are still talked about, maybe not the people who built them, but the buildings, and we know they were built by community members. This is our legacy to the community. Our great-grandkids and great-nieces and nephews will be able to come by and say, ‘My great uncle built that,’ or ,’my great-great grandfather built that.’ I have never lived more than 12 miles from this park and I am 55, so that pretty much tells you how ingrained this park is into my life. Now, my wife and I have 20 acres, and we border the park.”
Kingery is so happy with the result that he’s already booked the building for a family reunion next year.
“My family has used the park for family reunions ever since I can remember,” Kingery said.
“This is something that has been lacking … out here for 40 or 50 years and now look what they have,” Muller added. “The people who rent this, they don’t know who we are and I really don’t care if they do. We know what we gave them.”
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