After years of work and delays, Shangri-La Memorial Park now sports swings, a spinner, a tall playground structure with a climbing net and several slides, and a basketball court – giving neighborhood kids a place to meet, gather and play.

The community came together in a grand opening ceremony on Saturday, May 25 to celebrate the substantial renovations which had made the park a safe and enticing place for all. 

While grown-ups gathered under tents and ate pot-luck food, a gaggle of children climbed, crawled and swung on the new playground equipment. 

Attendees compared the park favorably to that which had been in place before it, saying that the previous iteration of the park had unsafe, out-of-date playground equipment and was prone to flooding. 

“For a long time, kids weren’t able to come here, because everything was so damaged and outdated,” said former Shangri-la resident Matt Gately. 

The Shangri-La community started work to replace the park in 2018, said Carol Malonson, who spearheaded the effort. 

In June of that year, it invited town officials to the park to see what could be done about its replacement, said Malonson. She was told the best way to get funding for the park was to join the Open Space Committee and take charge of the project. 

“And as much as I swore I would never join any government board again… I did it, because it mattered,” said Malonson. 

“Carol took the lead, and essentially built this playground for us,” said Shangri-La resident Craig Geddis, who presented Malonson with a plaque recognizing her work during the opening day ceremonies. 

By fall 2019, plans for the project were ready, and Town Meeting voters approved $220,000 in Community Preservation Act funding for the playground’s renovation. 

Once funding was secured, “We started working with the playground builder and picking out equipment and doing everything,” said Malonson. “Then Covid happened.”

The pandemic prevented the neighborhood from getting the equipment it needed for the playground, she explained. It took over two years for the project to get back up to speed. When it did, the community managed to get everything it was looking for and stay within its budget, she added. 

The park now boasts new playground equipment, as well as improvements to address the issue of flooding. 

The Wareham Municipal Maintenance department installed drainage trenches filled with small stones to allow the water from rainstorms to go underground rather than pool on the playground, said Malonson. 

Since that upgrade, the playground hasn’t seen “any flooding issues at all,” she said.

The renovations to the park were completed in time for winter vacation, and since then, kids have constantly gathered there to make new friends and to play, said Malonson. “They just love it.”