MARYSVILLE — It wasn’t their first time working in the weeds in Comeford Park, but the 35 employees of the Marysville branch of Keller Williams Realty had a new reason to focus on this particular city park for the company’s Red Day of community service May 12.

Parks maintenance manager Mike Robinson credited Keller Williams with assisting the city on a number of projects over the past half-dozen years, most recently by refurbishing the playground and green spaces of the Ebey Waterfront Park last year, also in preparation for increased summertime usage.

And while Keller Williams had done similar work in Comeford Park back in 2012, that was well before it included the spray park that opened in the summer of 2014.

“We’re about two weeks away from opening the spray park for this year, and we’re already expecting a busy season,” Robinson said. “We’ve gotten calls asking if we could open earlier, but we’ve been sticking to our season of Memorial Day to Labor Day, although sometimes we expand that at the back end if the demand warrants it.”

Robinson credited the family oriented activities associated with the spray park with helping “to push out other activities that weren’t so welcome here,” and praised Keller Williams for making a tangible difference for the community’s quality of life.

“If we brought in a crew of this many city employees to work the same amount of hours, the costs would quickly add up,” Robinson said, noting that each one would need to be paid roughly $22 per hour for about three hours. “This saves us time and money.”

Amy Wagner, the designated broker for Keller Williams in Marysville, expressed pride in all the local Red Day projects they’ve taken part in, from repainting the Boys & Girls Club and performing errands for senior living communities to doing handiwork at the private residence of a woman with a disabled child, who operated a hair salon out of her home.

“We’re not particular about where we direct our assistance,” Wagner said. “We just care that it benefits people.”

Tonja Wortham spearheaded this year’s Comeford Park efforts, and advised other businesses who are interested in community service to contact the city.

“They’ll tell you which areas need attention, they’ll bring checklists and they’ll provide assistance,” Wortham said. “The city brought us the flowers to plant.”

She advised prospective volunteer crews to determine exactly who will bring which needed supplies to a given job, but also encouraged them to have fun with it.

“Just a little effort can make a big difference,” Wortham said.