A grassroots effort to build a memorial park for St. Marys residents killed by COVID-19 is underway but needs assistance from the community.
Allan Giese, 68, chairman of the park planning committee, said he and a group of fellow city residents came up with the idea of creating an area for quiet reflection in St. Marys REC Authority Park earlier this year.
“We wanted it to represent life,” said Giese, a St. Marys resident of 35 years. “In having it in a park that families use and making the trees functionally useful, we feel that will be useful for generations to come. We also want it to be a place for quiet reflection.”
At first, they simply wanted to plant some live oaks in the recreation center on Margaret Street. But since its inception, the idea has expanded to include irrigation, benches and dedication plaques.
“The whole idea is that all of us have experienced things during the pandemic,” Giese said. “I’ve been in the schools and they’ve all experienced it. This is also a big thank you, is what it is.”
As of Monday, the fundraiser was at around $8,000 of the $25,000 needed to complete the park, Giese said.
Giese said the city of St. Marys and the Camden County Public Service Authority will develop the park once the money is raised.
Anyone interested in donating can do so at camdencountyrotary.org or via check to Camden County Rotary Foundation with a memo to “remembrance park,” mailed to Rotary Club Foundations of Camden County, P.O. Box 1415, Kingsland, GA 31548.
“Anyone who gives money can be assured there’s no monkey business going on because it goes straight from a 501c3 (charity organization) to the city of St. Marys to award contracts,” Giese said.
The city isn’t putting any money into it, but the mayor of St. Marys, John Morrissey, supports it wholeheartedly.
“It’s pretty much a grassroots organization,” Morrissey said. “I would say that we’ve all recognized the impact of the pandemic. It’s taken its toll on the community at large and so many individuals. It’s been one difficult surprise after another. Some people have lost friends, others family members.”
While not funding the project, the Southeast Georgia Health System is involved in the park’s planning committee via Digital Media Supervisor Melody Bradley.
“People are already going to the park for fun purposes, and this would just be another way to bring the community together on a deeper level because of the shared experience because of the sacrifice and grief,” Bradley said.
Glenn Gann, vice president and administrator of the SGHS’ Camden Campus, said it’s a very big deal for the folks working in health care locally and will memorialize “a heck of a challenge” that sometimes felt like a losing battle.
“I think it’s going to be a place for the health care community to visit and reflect,” Gann told The News Monday. “COVID-19 has had such an impact on those on the frontlines both personally and professionally.
“It’s going to be nice to have this space to sit and walk and reconcile those feelings.”
The pandemic has been hard on hospital workers especially, he explained. The St. Marys hospital has had more patients than ever who are sicker than ever, he said, which unfortunately lead to more deaths than ever.
“It really just took a toll on everyone,” Gann said. “We’re healers, and especially with the delta variant, we could not heal. We’re good at accompanying too, but we like to heal.”
From a professional perspective the effort to build the park means a lot, he said, but personally, it’s also a touching thing. Hospital workers are members of the community too, and there was plenty of loss across the country to go around.
Ideally, it will be a place to remember but also somewhere for his grandchildren to visit and to learn about the pandemic from those who experienced it. And it certainly was an era-defining event that touched the global supply chain, disease protection, building design and many more sectors of society.
“I’d talk to them about the silent killer that came upon us quickly and the tireless efforts of our frontline team, and how the team at the Camden campus came together. Everyone in that facility put themselves at risk so they could be there for the Camden community,” Gann said. “Everyone has been involved in it. It’s going to stay with us forever and will continue to bring fear and concern.”
COVID-19 is most likely not the last pandemic of its type the world will experience, he added. Rather than scaring his grandchildren, he hopes the park will inspire them to take up a life of service and compassion.
