East Lake Park adds RV campground

“Camping’s kind of the ‘in’ thing right now,” said Clarke County Conservation Board Executive Director Scott Kent.

Since taking over in February 2016, Kent has made some big waves at East Lake Park. With help from Elizabeth Simpson, program manager at the Clarke County Development Corporation (CCDC), Kent has applied for more than $1 million in grants. The effort is paying off with many upcoming improvements covered almost entirely by approved grant funds. Projects include a 25-site RV campground at the park with full water and electricity hookups, dumping station and shower house.

“There was a lot of thought that went into the design of the campground as far as the convenience of pulling in, backing in, individual hookups. We went into a lot of detail on that, trying to make it as nice as we could,” said Kent.

The campground road will wind north around the Prairie shelter. Nine pull-in sites and 16 back-in sites will branch off the path.

“We looked at several around and got a lot of feedback from local RV campers and what they wanted,” said Kent. “For instance, a lot of your older campsites only had up to 30 amp hookups and with today’s bigger RV systems they’re requiring 50 amp, so our boxes will have a 20, 30 and 50 breaker box they can hook into.”

In the future, buddy sites — areas where four or five RVs can camp together — and a bathroom with a shower house will be added.

“With the shower house, we’ll have to put in a wetland sanitation system. That would also allow us to have a dump station for the RVs,” he said. “Eventually, there will be a loop that goes into the trees for primitive camping — basically, tent camping, sleeping bags, whatever people want to use.”

It’s a long-awaited development for people in the area who enjoy spending time in the Great Outdoors.

“Right now, there’s not a campground in Clarke County that’s in a park area,” said Kent. “There’s been such a demand from local people. They want to be able to go camping and then run home and take a shower — or run home and check their livestock. They want somewhere close to home.”

How soon they will get it is another matter. The first phase of development is set to begin this spring.

“Our goal this year is to get all the roads in, the electrical and the water — the infrastructure,” said Kent.

In the meantime, two Osceola Eagle Scouts will be making their own marks on the park. Through their efforts, the park will gain a new soccer field and a refurbished basketball court.

More information on those improvements can be found in next week’s edition of the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune.