New Bench In Grace City Park

Park goers in Grace have a new place to sit thanks to Trinity Corder, a recent graduate of Grace High School.  Trinity created and designed a durable metal bench that features the local high school’s name and logo.  The bench is the culmination of hours of hard work and research that was all part of Trinity’s senior project.

Trinity had worked for Spartan Steel and had begun the process of learning a program called autocad prior to starting her senior project.  When she began to think about different projects that she could work on for her senior project Trinity wanted to apply the skills she had learned through the autocad program in a way that could benefit the community.  After much thought Trinity settled on making a bench for the Grace City Park where seating is limited especially near the playground.  Once her decision had been made she knew it would be a process to achieve her goal and finish the project.

“I had to decide what did I want on it? What do I want it to look like? Where am I going to get the parts, the metal, and how do I raise money for it?”  So Trinity got to work coming up with a design. “A lot of people don’t do autocad.  Specifically girls, but it was super fun to learn. It took months to learn the system to be comfortable enough to do it all on my own.”  The process was tedious and took endless hours of work drafting the design.  

“It was really fun to learn to do all of this and I will remember how to do all of this for a while.”

After designing the bench Trinity needed to get the city to approve her putting it in the park.  To do this she approached Mayor Barthlome who was thrilled with the prospect of more seating around the playground.

The bench was then constructed at Spartan Steel with Trinity’s design.  The bench was then brought to the high school where Trinity presented her senior project.  Students at the high school were then able to enjoy the bench being in the hallway for a short period of time prior to its move to the park.  Several of the students commented on how much they liked the bench and wished it was staying in the school for their use.

Finally just a few short days prior to graduation the day arrived for the bench to be installed at the park.  The spot selected is near the playground on the east side of the park under a shade tree.

When asked how she felt the project turned out Trinity replied, “I’m super happy and a lot of people have given me compliments on it.”

Mayor Barthlome stated, “We’re very appreciative of what she did.  It’s a nice asset to our park.  Thank you very much.”

One last note.  Why a bench for the park?  Well kitty corner from where this bench now sits on the far side of the park is another bench.  That bench was placed in memory of Ralph Thornock.  Trinity’s great-grandfather.  You can almost picture Ralph sitting on his bench looking across the park at his great-granddaughter’s bench with a sense of pride.