Marysville residents should be delighted when passing by Asbery Field this past week, recognizing a dramatic upgrade to one of the city’s oldest athletic fields.

What was recently a tired and unkempt community baseball field is now a reinvented welcoming gateway recreation center due to the 250-plus volunteers who participated in the second Serve Day project of 2008. More than 1,200 man-hours of labor were contributed on a beautiful Saturday morning by community members who came prepared to make a difference.

Retired equipment and fixtures, failing fences, gates and bleachers from the 1950s were dismantled and recycled. Nearly 800 linear feet of sod was removed and composted to provide a new mulch for the pedestrian trail for residents to enjoy. Volunteers planted some 50 trees and shrubs and created two new landscape corners for signs donated by HomeStreet Bank honoring Assac Asbery and his heirs contribution of the field in 1939.

A special thanks to our community of churches, Marysville Parks and Recreation and Marysville School District staff, as well as HomeStreet Bank for recognizing that a contribution can spark a community project of great impression and value. Residents can now enjoy a much improved community field that feels like a park on the site of our city’s original high school site.

Well done to all of those who truly served their community on a very special day.

Jim Ballew

Director of Parks and Recreation

City of Marysville