Feature Story A blue-ribbon park

and class or meeting space, and an outdoor amphitheater for gatherings. Depending on the arrangement of the table layout, between 250 and 320 can be seated in the hall. Information and costs for renting the facility can be found online. You can watch the kids engaged in water play in the O’Day Creek Experience Area, take a lunch break at a picnic table, or let your teens meet for some social time in the Teen Overlook. At the amphitheater, gather on the hillside below O’Day Lodge to listen to free concerts, watch educational and theater performances, and experience other new and interesting outdoor events. Funding for O’Day Park was approved by

O’Fallon voters in 2016 through the passage of a bond issue. The O’Day Park project team consisted of Mayor Bill Hennessy, the O’Fallon City Council, the Parks and Recreation and Engineering Departments, SWT Design, and Navigate Building Solutions. O’Day Park opened to the public on April 27, 2019. “This could not have happened without support,” Drabelle said. “Our community was behind us and we felt a real responsibility to create something that

they can be proud of.” O’Fallon has stuck with its plan to provide O’Day Park, named after a small creek that flows through the property, with natural meadows and wildflowers. The park has stayed away from the human footprint as much as possible. The park has passed on lighted, irrigated athletic fields and instead opted for a focus on maintaining the sustainable character of the landscape of wooded areas, a flowing natural creek, and prairie areas. “Most do not know what a true prairie looks like,” O’Fallon Park’s Bob Deardeuff told the Community News in 2018. “We want to attract people who are interested in getting in touch with nature and wouldn’t mind if a frog or two jumped out across from them while on a walking path.” And you can consider that another O’Day mission complete.

Photos courtesy city of O’Fallon