Rotary project adds games to Moses Lake park

MOSES LAKE — Setting a heavy concrete top on an immovable concrete base is a game of inches. Sometimes quarter-inches.

Moses Lake Rotary member Gary Ash was doing just that Wednesday morning, securing the top of a new concrete ping pong table in Carl T. Ahlers Memorial Park. It needed to be adjusted ever so slightly, about a quarter inch.

“A quarter inch south, or north?” asked fellow rotary member Norm Benson, who was part of the crew adjusting the tabletop.

“West, I thought,” Ash said.

Rotary members were helping Moses Lake city crews install the new ping pong table, a chess (or checkers) table and two bean bag toss games. City crews provided the front loader, some manpower and expertise to help move the solid concrete components into place.

To ensure nothing moves, the base of the chess/checkers and ping pong tables were fastened to concrete slabs, and the ping pong table top was anchored to the base with steel bars.

“It takes the wiggle out,” Ash said.

“There’s wiggle in that?” Benson said.

The ping-pong table is polished concrete; the chess/checkers table and seats are a mix of polished aggregate and stained and polished concrete. The beanbag games are polished aggregate.

Rotary president Pete Erickson said club members raised money to buy the recreation equipment in partnership with the Moses Lake Kiwanis. The two organizations work together on an annual fundraising golf tournament, Erickson said.

Rotary and Kiwanis members raised about $13,000, he said, then applied for and got a $10,000 grant from the Rotary Foundation. The foundation matches local club fundraisers one-to-one up to $10,000, he said.

Bill Aukett, park maintenance superintendent for the city, said Rotary members expressed interest in making improvements to Ahlers Memorial Park, across the street from Frontier Middle School.

“They approached us with the idea and the location,” Aukett said. “They wanted to do something for this particular park.”

“(City officials) have talked for years about a game park,” Erickson said. Ahlers Memorial Park is a block from McCosh Park, which makes it a good location for games, he said.

Each year the Moses Lake Rotary uses money raised by its members for various projects, some local, some international. In 2022 the club bought 200 smokeless stoves donated to families in Guatemala to help reduce health problems caused by continuous exposure to smoke, he said.

The Moses Lake Rotary meets every Tuesday at noon at the Pillar Rock Grill, 1373 Road F.2 NE, he said. People can find more information about the club, and how to join, on the Rotary website.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.