Dozens of people, adults and children, swarmed Martin Luther King, Jr Park Tuesday afternoon for hotdogs and music in a celebration of a new playground that is expected to get built later this year, provided the project can raise an additional $10,000 for a fence.
Mac Crank, the director of Clarksdale Revitalization, Inc., a nonprofit group that worked to raise funds for the playground with Southern Bancorp, said that he is confident that the fence money will get raised soon, although there is no deadline.
“I want to get it over and done with,” he said. He added that he would knock on doors, pass the hat and call in verbal commitments for donations.
Crank and Southern Bancorp met an Aug. 30 deadline to raise $75,000 for the playground, money that has been matched by the Delta Bridge Project for the new playground. The money came from all across the community, including church groups, civic organizations and from Southern Bancorp itself, which pledged a 3-to-1 match in the final months of fundraising.