HARROD — Thanks to both public and private donations, those attending Saturday’s Harrod Pork Rind Heritage Festival will see a new public shelter house on Main Street, along with a handicap-accessible parking lot at Railroad Park.
Harrod Mayor Shannon Rumer noted that while the physical foundation for the shelter house may be recently made, its real roots go back several years.
“The shelter house started about 10 years ago,” he said. “The village council tore down a building here and the land was donated to the village. Council had talked about doing a shelter house, but it never got done. We just didn’t have the money.”
Park funds from the Johnny Appleseed Metropolitan Park District were able to make this long-standing goal a reality, Rumer said.
“For our Pork Rind Festival, we wanted to do the pork rinds in a shelter and not in a tent, since it can be kind of dangerous to do that when it rains and you have the hot grease and water,” he said. “So (council member) Tony (Blake) filed for a grant, and we got $20,000 from Johnny Appleseed.”
Long-time festival partner Rudolph Foods donated the money for the concrete foundation for the shelter house, which extends eight feet on either side.
“The Auglaize Historical Society also had a big hand with the financial part of it,” Blake said. “We also had volunteer help from residents and R.D. Jones Excavating helped with materials and equipment.”
The new parking lot came via a donation from Marathon Oil Corp. after the company had conducted lengthy repairs on Main Street.
“There was a big hole in the middle of the road,” Rumer said. “We met with Marathon and they were apologetic, and I joked that if they put some asphalt down in this park, I’d believe that they were sorry more. And they said, ‘We think we can do that.’”
In total, Marathon spent $26,000 for the street repair as well as the new parking lot.
“The only taxpayer money was spent for permits and engineering work on the shelter,” Rumer said.
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