AKRON, Ohio — Rare seeds, a park ranger patch, a pandemic mask — these are a few of the items Summit Metro Parks employees assembled in a kind of love letter to future parks staff.
The items won’t be seen again for 50 years, when a time capsule sealed inside a wall at the Summit Lake Nature Center is opened. A plaque will be installed at the site, instructing the future Metro Parks team to open the time capsule on Dec. 31, 2071.
The capsule is a part of Summit Metro Parks’ 100-year anniversary.
“We think that they are going to find that they will want to carry on the tradition that we have here at Metro Parks of providing excellent park experiences,” Executive Director Lisa King told a group gathered at the Nature Center to witness the sealing of the capsule.
The location is fitting, as Metro Parks was chief among the groups working to transform Summit Lake, Akron’s most disenfranchised neighborhood. The nature center started as a pop-up facility for families in the neighborhood. It was so popular, Metro Parks built a permanent nature center in a former pump house next to the lake, offering year-round programming.
Each department at the agency selected items to go into the capsule, choosing things that represent the many facets of work the staff performs.
Naturalists took photos of themselves and wrote messages on the back to future employees. The marketing department included samples of all the Metro Parks publications. King included flowers from Springfield Bog, captured in clear resin.
To celebrate its centennial, Metro Parks created a special section on its website where visitors can explore a Century of Memories, an interactive, historical timeline, that begins on Dec. 21, 1921.
The Centennial Tour enables visitors to learn more about many Metro Parks locations, and offers a guide that can be downloaded.
Through Dec. 21, users can explore 20 Metro Parks locations to learn how each site came to become part of the park system, and what the future might hold for them. Those who complete the tour will receive a commemorative leather patch for their hiking staff, the agency said.
Several elements of Summit Metro Parks’ Centennial campaign have been recognized for excellence, said Claire Merrick, marketing and public relations manager.
The Centennial Tour won the Spirit of Hospitality Zenith Award from the Akron-Summit County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Centennial brochure was recognized by the National Association of Interpretive Media and the campaign was awarded first place for innovation by the Ohio Parks and Recreation Association.
