Tilden Township celebrates new playground

TILDEN TOWNSHIP — A new playground was officially dedicated Friday in Tilden Township.

The township received $27,500 from the Department of Natural Resources through its Recreational Passport Local Grant Program, and a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to commemorate the grant.

The township started renovating the old playground last year, and it officially opened last fall.

“The kids have been using it — they wanted to go on it before it was finished, of course — but they’ve been playing on it all summer, and I go by here and there’s just kids crawling all over it and it’s just awesome,” Tilden Township supervisor Lori Kulju said.  “We’ve added different things like grills and they can come have a picnic…you can play all day.”

The total cost of the project was about $100,000, and Kulju said applying for the DNR grant was well worth it.

“It’s once-in-a-lifetime project for our township,” she said.  “It’s not just for Tilden Township residents, it’s for everybody, so we have baseball teams coming from Negaunee and all their families and the kids can go play on the playground…it’s just really nice.”

The Tilden Township Recreation Complex now has the playground, baseball fields, grills and horseshoe pits for the community to enjoy.