Statues add to Vernon Hills park whimsy

Baseball season is over but bronze castings installed Monday at Grosse Pointe Park in Vernon Hills will keep the image fresh year-round.

The same can be said for the golfer at Hawthorn Park and children at play in Hartmann Park, erected for the first time by volunteers in a continuing Vernon Hills Park District initiative.

The statues, which come from the Randolph Rose Collection in Yonkers, N.Y., have been popping up in Vernon Hills' parks since 2002 when executive director Larry DeGraaf saw them at a trade show.

"I thought, what a great way to bring a little art to the parks," he said. "All the sports are represented. You've got kids on bicycles, skateboards. We've got a little girl with a sprinkling can in one of our flower beds."

Up to this point, park crews had installed the castings and were waiting until late fall when scheduled outdoor activities had ended, the grass had been mowed for the last time and the parks were empty.

On Monday, about a dozen managers from Jamba Juice stores in the Chicago North Shore District, including Vernon Hills, hoisted eight statues onto anchors previously set in concrete by staffers.

The effort was the first of what are planned to be quarterly service projects for the juice chain, and is another step in a park district campaign to engage local businesses beyond sponsorships or advertising.

"We're developing what you could call a parks partners program," said Marty Walsh, community relations coordinator for the park district.

The castings vary in size and weight depending on the activity depicted and the number of figures included. Kids playing on a tree branch, for example, is the subject of a casting in the Laschen Center, the district headquarters.

Cost vary from several hundred dollars to up to $5,000 for large pieces, according to DeGraaf. Park district boards have approved the acquisitions of nearly two dozen pieces as unique elements for local parks.

DeGraaf said the goal is to get at least one piece in all 24 parks. Some already have more than one.

"They're everywhere, or will be," he said.