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City of Neighborhoods: Fritsch Park

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GREEN BAY – When Randy Griswold was invited to attend a Fritsch Park meeting by a friend and board member, he was not expecting to leave the meeting president of the Neighborhood Association (NA).

“I ended up saying, okay, I’ll take over the presidency. And that’s how it all started,” said Griswold.

Now, in his 37th year as a neighborhood resident and his sixth year as Fritsch Park’s president, Griswold works closely with the Oneida Nation and a board of eight members to coordinate and host events for their community.

“We’ve built up such a great level of momentum and we have such a great reputation that we’ve developed over the last few years,” Griswold noted about the team effort.

Green Bay Neighborhoods agrees with the reputation that Griswold has helped build for his NA, as they named him the 2024 Neighbor of the Year, something that Griswold said came as a “complete surprise.”

During Griswold’s first year as the NA’s president, he worked closely with the Green Bay Parks Department on a few projects at Ted Fritsch Park.

“It’s one of the hidden gems of Green Bay,” Griswold said about the park.

The Fritsch Park NA decided to add a gaga ball pit to the park’s long list of amenities, such as restrooms, running water, power, playground facilities and a lit baseball field.

To get the park ready for the addition of the pit, the Green Bay Parks department did a wonderful job in excavating and backfilling the area to create the base, said Griswold.

And it seems as though all of the work was worth it, as Griswold also mentioned that local children play the game on a daily basis during summer.

A few years after the gaga ball installation, the NA also added a 12-by-12-foot sandbox with an aluminum digger crane to Ted Fritsch Park.

As for what’s coming up, Griswold shared three major events that both he and his neighborhood are looking forward to hosting in Ted Fritsch Park.

The first will be a Fritsch Park neighborhood block party on Friday, July 11, from 4-8 p.m. which will have DJ entertainment, a photo booth, park games and a cookout with burgers, brats, hot dogs and steamed corn.

The next event will be a back to school celebration on Aug. 15 to get neighborhood children pumped to get school started once more.

This event will include professional balloon twisting and a foam party hosted by Mark Paul and kids entertainment from Randy Peterson.

Once the community excitement for back to school begins to pass and classes are back in session, the Fritsch Park Neighborhood Association will then host their annual Fall Fest.

Fall Fest is a celebration made up of pumpkin decorating, face painting and a costume contest, as well as the NA’s annual meeting.

Griswold made sure to give credit where it’s due when it comes to hosting all of these large scale events, as he said that he and his Neighborhood Association organize each project with the help of the Oneida Nation.

Fritsch Park and the Oneida Nation have been community betterment partners for the past five years.

“It’s just grown into this, this real good joint effort for improving the quality of life in the Fritsch Park area,” said Griswold.

“We would not be able to pull off these events to the scale that they are without their support.”

A few other Neighborhood Associations also work as partners with the Oneida Nation, King of Arms and MacArthur Heights.

But these massive events that bring hundreds of neighbors together isn’t even the most exciting thing that the Fritsch Park Neighborhood Association and the Oneida Nation have coming up.

As a grandfather of eight, Griswold is always looking for summer activities to create memories with his grandkids.

“One of the things I noticed as a grandfather is that there really isn’t a water feature out here on the west side of Green Bay. So when we were looking for something for my grandkids to do on hot summer days, we would have to drive,” Griswold said.

But Fritsch Park won’t be without a water feature for much longer.

Due to a generous $100,000 donation from the Oneida Nation to the city of Green Bay and an additional quarter million from the city itself, Ted Fritsch Park is expecting a new splash pad to be installed within the next few years.

“It’s just a good example of the communication, the benevolence between all of our all parties, including Oneida Nation, and just the goodwill that everybody’s trying to achieve as a quality of life measure here on the far west side,” Griswold said about the plans for the splash pad.

“Our real underlying mission here is just simply to improve the quality of life of the people that live in the Fritsch Park area.”

And for any additional information regarding Green Bay Neighborhoods and their mission, visit gbneighborhoods.org.

Randy Griswold, Fritsch Park, Neighborhood Association, NA, Griswold, Oneida Nation, Green Bay Neighborhoods, 2024 Neighbor of the Year, Green Bay Parks Department, Ted Fritsch Park

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