Leisure Plans
Rebecca Squires is head of Oak Island’s parks network
Many people who have walked, ridden their bike, or driven past Veterans Park in Oak Island might not have fully appreciated this gem of a waterfront retreat. Located at NE 14th Street and Yacht Drive, it’s not really a stop-and-see kind of place.
Soon, however, improvements to the approximately 1/3-acre passive park may have you reflecting how you can spend more time here.
Director of Oak Island Parks and Recreation for the past four years, REBECCA SQUIRES is caretaker of Oak Island’s twenty-five parks and its robust recreational activities including fitness classes, sailing camps, Easter egg hunts, and the Sea Turtle Protection Program, which utilizes volunteers to protect endangered sea turtles.
Squires has worked for the Oak Island department for almost fourteen years. She had been a program supervisor for the city of Graham in Alamance County before moving to the coast.
“My family lives in Hampstead, and I saw the potential for growth and programs in Oak Island,” she says. “So, I accepted the job.”
On a recent sunny day, Squires stood on the edge of Veterans Park facing the Intracoastal Waterway (formerly called Waterway Park for obvious reasons) and explained the vision for the upcoming park beautification project.
Now simply a picnic table, parking area, restrooms, a gazebo, and a lovely view of the waterway, people can only fish on the bulkhead during high tide. The park, however, will soon house an open space with a boardwalk, butterfly garden, covered swing seats, picnic area, and a 10-12-foot fishing pier that goes into the water 70 feet and has a shaded fishing “T”.
It will be wheelchair accessible, and what’s considered a passive park, as opposed to one buzzing with baseball games and tennis matches – perfect for a day of fishing (regardless of the tide), relaxing, and, yes, reflection.
It will allow residents and visitors to spend a tranquil day at the water, enjoy a picnic, and stroll to the nearby oyster restoration area. Gentle reminders of fishing etiquette will be posted.
The town has an all-volunteer Beautification Club whose members help clean the nature parks in town. They approached Squires about the renovations. The city applied for and received a grant of more than $100,000 under the Coastal Area Management Act. The grant will be used for the pier and boardwalk, and the work will begin in July. In the fall, work on the butterfly garden will begin. Nearly all work is expected to be completed by December, but the picnic shelter may not be completed until next year.
Squires says aside from the pier and boardwalk, she hopes to complete the rest of the project with in-kind donations and volunteers, keeping the cost to the city minimal.
Future ideas – and at this stage they’re exactly that – are a sculpture garden with possibly a monument to honor current and past members of the military. The park was renamed Veterans Park a year ago when an ROTC student now in the military planted trees to honor each branch of the military. Squires notes there are many military ties in the area. Wounded Warrior representatives have offered to help fundraise to fund a statue. Members of the town’s Parks and Recreation and its advisory board hope to one day form a foundation whose primary mission will be to spearhead fundraising.
“The new park will open up an entirely new population of people able to enjoy it,” Squires says.
