North County Recreation Association

Castle Rock is a small town. Offially the census says there's a little over 2,100 people in the city limits. But there's probably 5-10k people in the school district. Neighboring Toutle Lake is even smaller. Needless to say, the Castle Rock / Toutle areas are very tight knit communities and life revolves around school and kid activities. There was a huge need to replace our decrepit old baseball fields and create some new soccer fields. So a dedicated group of local business leaders and parents had a vision to create the North County Recreation Association. They raised money, negiotiated for land to be donated and use agreements with the school district and city, applied and received several large grants to build the North County Recreation / Sports Complex back behind CR's high school.

It is truly amazing what they have been able to accomplish with almost total volunteer labor (fairly recently they did hire a baseball concessions manager but other than that its all volunteer support). There is a awesome sports complex with a 2 story club house, 3 or 4 very nice little league baseball fields (part of the state tourney is held there for the last 2-3 years) and 2 girls softball fields. There is a huge area for the soccer fields. In a addition, there is a mile long path that circles this part of the complex and excercise equipment is being installed along it so that you can get a complete workout on the circuit. In addition, work on the new boat launch into the Cowlitz River is going at a frantic pace. (After several years of review, they finally got the necessary permits from the Corps of Engineers late last week. All 'in river' work must be completed by September 15th so not to affect the salmon. If they miss the deadline, they will have to wait until next August to resume.) I walk the loop most nights and it's been impressive to see the progress is going. (They truly are working dawn to dusk.) There are also plans for a campground and playground and paving the parking lot to be put in future phases.

Obviously, all this costs money. So every October, North County hosts a big dinner/dance auction event which raises a lot of money to support all upkeep and maintenance of everything we've built so far. (I've been helping with it for a couple years and it is a lot of fun and has a lot of great items.) So mark Saturday, October 3rd on your calendars. (Place TBD - which is the subject of another post.) So if you know anyone who would like to donate items for the auction or would like to attend, let me know. If you want to donate that would be even better. NCRA is a 501c3 non profit and its tax deductible.