A $56,777 donation to Felicita Park will fund new exercise equipment, solar lighting, restrooms, and other improvements. The City of Arvin continues a broader effort to upgrade all five city parks. According to Mayor Olivia Calderon, the donation came through Committee for a Better Arvin and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE), which secured funding from Recology.
Calderon said the donation represents the city’s new approach to improving parks through partnerships with community organizations and outside funding. She said the city recently adopted a policy allowing it to accept financial and in-kind donations, which led to the nearly $57,000 contribution for Felicita Park.
Calderon said the city’s long-term goal extends beyond repairing park facilities. She said she envisions Arvin’s five parks as welcoming community spaces where residents of all ages can gather, exercise and spend time together.
“My vision for the city, and my vision for parks, is to build community,” Calderon said. “Our parks, where our families come, and our kids come, could be a beautiful space where they’re green and alive and they’re shaded, that they’re safe and that everyone, no matter your age, can come here and find rest, refuge, a peaceful place. A place to celebrate birthdays, a place to be with your grandparents, a place to come and watch sports.”
Calderon addressed that there will be further improvements to be done, including the electrical work to the other two parks and maintaining the restrooms clean, stocked, and accessible seven days a week.
“Our Public Works team has been working hard. In making all these upgrades and retrofits and rehabs, but also installing park benches, trash cans, and grills,” Calderon stated.
Calderon said the city plans to expand its tree canopy by planting 150 trees throughout Arvin, primarily in city parks, using a $250,000 grant from the San Joaquin Air District through the AB 617 program.
“We are going to plant trees throughout our parks, because we’re gonna bring them; we’re gonna create a beautiful canopy of trees in all of our parks. We want there to be shade, natural shade. The shade structure that I was talking about earlier for the playground is very different, right, than bringing in actual shade, trees throughout the parks,” said Calderon.
While city officials outlined ongoing improvements, residents said additional work is still needed, particularly regarding shade and restroom access. Luisa Sepuiveda, a mother in Arvin, expressed her view on what parks mean to her and the community.
“Parks to me mean happiness, joy, and peace. They serve our community by just giving us happiness because I bring my son most of the time, and you know, it gives him time to run around and just forget about being home. And it gives me, you know, peace just watching him play and being able to sit down and just watch him,” said Sepuiveda.
Sepuiveda also commented on her concerns that the lack of shade, hot playground equipment, and no restroom access have prevented her family from interacting in the area.
“Sometimes there’s no shade whenever I bring my son, and the slides are hot, you know, there’s metal that’s also hot. So it’d be nice to have, like, maybe grow some trees around it to give it a little bit of shade, or just put shade over the playground, and also restrooms,” said Sepuiveda. “There are a few parks that don’t have restrooms, and it would be nice to have, you know, a restroom in each park, so that way, either I have to go, you know, take my baby to use the restroom, or I have to go myself. It’d be nice to have every park with a restroom.”
Arvin residents also emphasized the importance of having restrooms in the parks. Sindia Morales, a mother in Arvin, also spoke about what changes these parks need and her vision for these city parks for the community.
“One change I would like to see for Arvin Parks is the issues with public bathrooms. They need to keep up with the maintenance of all the bathrooms, not just the new ones,” said Morales.
She hopes to see an improvement and progress towards this issue. Morales said that with the improvements, more parents will be comfortable using the public restrooms.
Calderon explained that, because of the deficit in the city budget, the City is “financially strapped,” and will have to think of other ways to help fund the parks.
“So we know that we’re going to have to get creative and think out of the box. We can’t just think, oh, we’re just going to just rely on funding that it’s in the budget,” said Calderon. “Right now, the money is not there, but we cannot let our parks die. We absolutely cannot. It’s critical that we all come together and say this is a priority because the community has told us and we know it because we see it and we live it every day.”
Calderon said community partnerships and volunteer efforts will play an important role in helping the city continue improving its parks. She pointed to volunteers who helped design and paint Arvin’s first community mural as an example of how residents are already investing their time and talents to improve public spaces.
“Our volunteers, for example, they just love their community so much,” Calderon said. “They’re the ones that came out to create the first community mural. They designed it, they worked together, we got some donations, and they painted that beautiful mural. They want to see art in our parks.”
Calderon said even small acts of volunteerism can have a lasting impact, particularly because the city’s Public Works Department operates with a limited staff responsible for maintaining all five parks and other city infrastructure.
“I think that as we’re working together in community like this, even the smallest investment of time and energy makes the greatest difference because it inspires everyone to know this: each and every one of us can make a difference,” Calderon said. “Our Public Works team is really, really tiny. Ten guys. They are responsible for maintaining all of it. That’s a lot of work for a 10-man crew, so they’re going to need community support and community partnership to make this a reality for us in the parks.”
The Public Works department handles all parks and recreation in the city of Arvin for the community. Supervisor Pedro Barraza is in charge of the maintenance of the city parks and streets.
He said Smotherman Park was renovated back in 2022; the restrooms, everything from plumbing to the appliances inside the restroom, were reconstructed. That project was running simultaneously with Digiorgia Park. In addition, in 2024, Kovacevich received renovations.
Budget layoffs, however, will change the way Public Works handles its responsibilities in the city, as they are losing two workers. With fewer workers, there is a timeframe set of two months for further improvements to be addressed, according to Barraza.
Felicita Park renovations will begin immediately, as the city received a grant and has a contract of six months for the project to be completed.
