OSBURN –– Perhaps no park in Shoshone County has received as much attention recently as the Lion’s Park – and for good reason too.

Over the past few years, Jenna Grant-Arthun and the City of Osburn, along with the Lion’s Park Playground Committee have been hard at work putting together and executing a plan to revitalize the aging park.

Much of the playground work was completed during the 2022 calendar year, the park remained unfinished – including the fitness park (which is expected to be completed in just a few days), as well as several park amenities.

Last week, in accordance with the Lion’s Park Playground Committee, Mountain West Bank (MWB) held a work day at the park where they helped take care of a few loose ends.

Five park benches were assembled and installed, two picnic tables were sanded and repainted. Bank tellers got to be landscapers for a day, as they planted flowers in pots and placed them around the park. They dug holes for posts for the sunshade sails over the fitness court and playground.

They even painted a few rocks for Sylvester, the Silver Valley’s very own Rock Snake.

“Mountain West Bank takes pride in helping out wherever and whenever we can in the communities that we operate in,” MWB Branch manager Gina Doerschel said. “Since we were closed for Juneteenth, we took the opportunity to take this day and make it a bank-wide event so that all employees could participate together. I have a branch of five people, but we ended up with a total of 14 bank employees on this one project.”

Doerschel and Grant-Arthun go way back to when they both were involved with the Silver Valley Economic Development Corporation – another group that has been heavily involved with the work at the park.

“Mountain West Bank has been a huge advocate for the Lion’s Park since they first arrived in Wallace,” Arthun-Grant said. “Gina and her team are always looking for a way to get involved in the community and she contacted me months ago to start planning the Juneteenth Lions Park Work Day. There are times when communities like ours can feel divided either by distance, politics, or even tragedy. Projects like this may seem small but it gives people hope when they see different businesses, agencies, and individuals come together to create something that our community and future generations can enjoy.”

With the park moving closer to being fully open to the public, Grant-Arthun, who has been as involved as one person could, is excited to see the collaborative efforts of so many pay off.

Doerschel, a Silver Valley native who refuses to pledge her allegiance to just one of the many communities, wants nothing more than see the entirety of Shoshone County prosper even if it means she and her crew breaking a little sweat.

“With the closures of other financial institutions in the Silver Valley, I think it’s important that Mountain West Bank, and we who live and work with here, partner with other entities to show how invested we truly are in being here,” Doerschel said. “We all want to see our small communities thrive and grow and to have great places for people to spend their time. We all need to work together for the common good, or great if you will. We need to get back some community love in these trying times.”

The Lion’s Park Fitness Court is expected to be completed and the park finished by the end of this month.