Rexroth Park
By John Shevelew
President of Young Knights Football and Cheer
The Young Knights Football and Cheer organization was founded in the 1970s to provide recreational activities for the children who live in the Eastern York School District’s surrounding municipalities. Open space for recreation has always been at a premium in the eastern York area, and for many years the Young Knights bounced around to different fields looking for a home. With the development of Rexroth Park, that changed.
The facilities at Rexroth Park were perfect for our organization’s needs. Volunteer non-profits like us depend on fundraising to maintain our programs at a minimal cost to participants. Rexroth not only supplies great fields for the kids, but also has a concession stand and pavilion that provides a source of income to help support our efforts. In addition, there is a youth-oriented playground, to the delight of our parents, which allows younger brothers and sisters to have some fun during practices in a safe environment.
Rural communities like Lower Windsor Township rarely have a “center of town” type of area. Rexroth Park provides just that type of meeting place. Small towns can rarely afford recreational areas like this and it is only through the assistance of the state and county governments that these facilities become a reality. It is far more cost-effective for us to provide constructive activities for our youth than to be forced to hire more law enforcement to combat the less desirable possibilities created by idle youth.
My family and I moved here six years ago from New Jersey where I spent nine years as mayor of a rural township. One of our reasons for selecting Lower Windsor Township was because of facilities like Rexroth Park. Folks may not realize it, but these types of projects help protect home values and make communities more desirable.
