The Old Lincoln High School Park now has a new attraction designed to help children keep cool on a hot summer day, as the city unveiled a new Splash pad during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday.

Colby Wilson, of the Water Service Corporation of Kentucky, explained how he and his company were involved in getting the splash pad operational.

“Our parent company donates $30,000 a year to various volunteers throughout their service community,” Wilson said. “When I found out about this, I thought we needed some of this in our community too.”

Wilson said he then started volunteering throughout the community, doing things such as planting trees in Ford’s Woods Park, holding a cookout for city of Middlesboro employees and purchasing Christmas presents for area school children.

“From that, I wrote a proposal for the splash pad,” Wilson said. “They gave me $11,600 to buy all the stuff for the splash pad, so we got it and went to work.”

Wilson said a work crew made up of Water Service Corporation of Kentucky, city of Middlesboro and Bell County employees performed the work of constructing the splash pad.

According to Wilson, the project took almost three years to complete from beginning to end. The actual construction of the splash pad took a few months.

“From groundbreaking to completion, it’s been about two and half or three months,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the splash pad’s primary use is for children to have a place to play and cool off on a hot day.

“Water Service Corporation is donating all the water to this,” Wilson said. “Any water use at this park is covered.”

“We were very fortunate to have everyone work so hard to make this happen,” said Middlesboro City Council member Boone Bowling.

“We had some of our guys in the city donate their time to help this come together…We’re very thankful to have it, and it’s going to be a great activity for the kids this summer.”

Wilson mentioned how the idea of a splash pad was hit upon.

“When we flush hydrants, kids will flock to them and play in the water, they want to get wet,” Wilson said. “So, we wanted to give them something water-related that they could have fun with.”

The splash pad will be open at Old Lincoln High School Park from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. every day.