Spouses dig in for Heritage Park

  • Published
  • By Capt. Frank Hartnett
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  Eielson's Heritage Park seemed to come alive with the smell of sweet flowers and fresh top soil as volunteers worked hard planting last weekend. 

The volunteers were members of the Officer and Enlisted Spouse's Clubs; the two organizations came together to benefit the base community by landscaping Heritage park with new flowers and removing old plants. 

The organizations were spurred into action thanks to Lisa Giannelli, wife of Tech. Sgt. Scott Gianelli, 354th Logistics Readiness Squadron logistics technician, and Vice President of the Enlisted Spouses Club. Her last home was Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, where she enjoyed the elaborate and beautiful base park. 

The park was beautiful and well maintained, we loved to take our family photos at that park and send them to friends and family, Giannelli said. 

During her first summer she was happy to see that Eielson's Heritage Park continued the Air Force tradition of a well-maintained and beautiful park that could be used for official ceremonies or for the informal family photo. 

However, last summer the park was bare and the flowers were gone; this is when the concerned spouse took action. She found out that the flowers were part of a contract that was lost during renegotiation; but the Civil Engineering squadron still had funding for flowers if a group of volunteers were willing to do the work. The Enlisted Spouses Club agreed to help and were joined by the Officer Spouse's Club. 

The organizations were able to operate on a budget of nearly $3,000 thanks to the CE squadron and rallied nearly 20 volunteers to plant the new flowers. The volunteers were eager to help out their base community. 

"Anything to make this place more incredible is great," said Megan Hodapp, wife of Senior Airman Michael Hodapp, 354th Communications Squadron Information Assurance technician. "Everything is running smoothly--the dirty part was removing the old plants." 

The volunteer effort can best be seen around the metal globe at Heritage Park; this is where dead plants were removed and replaced with new colorful flowers, fresh mulch and soil. 

Event organizers said that the project went well thanks to the base support and want to maintain the flowers for next year.