Trail to Recovery: Student-led initiative fundraises for park restoration

Trail five at McCormick's Creek State Park previously led visitors to the narrow passageway of Wolf Cave and the waterfall. Now, nearly two years after a tornado tore through the park, the trail remains inaccessible to the public.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF Scale), used to measure the strength of a tornado based on wind speeds, ranges from EF-1 to EF-5. The tornado went through passageways, buildings and habitats in the state park and was classified as EF-3.

According to the National Weather Service, an EF-3 tornado is on the high end of what's considered to be a strong tornado, just below violent. This means there were wind speeds ranging from 136-165 mph and falls under "severe" on the EF Scale.

The time it took for the tornado to completely pass through the park was estimated to be 30 to 40 seconds, and in that time 282 out of the park's 1,961 acres were damaged, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

While the damage to the park was extensive, it wasn't the only thing lost after the March 31, 2023 tornado. Brett and Wendy Kindcaid lost their lives when the storm passed through McCormick's Creek.

According to their service announcement from Soller-Baker Funeral Homes and Crematory, the couple died "doing what they loved, camping together."

Not long after the storm, the Owen County Chamber of Commerce visited Owen Valley High School to encourage students to create a project that would help better the community. One student wanted to help restore the park he's grown to love and encouraged his peers to join him.

Sawyer LaGrange is passionate about the environment and had already started the club Students for the Planet at the school. Following the extensive damage to different areas through the park, LaGrange started a second student group, Patriots for the Park.

"That's always kind of been in the back of my mind, just the devastation that the park has gone through," LaGrange said. "So I knew that the project I wanted to do was to help our park, because in my mind, this community is so tied to our park that, you know, they're one in the same."

Students in the group work to raise money for restoration projects to reopen trail five through donations from local businesses and residents of the community and earning profits through fundraising events.

"Pretty much for the entirety of football season at my high school, we were at our home football games selling baked goods," LaGrange said. "We've also made tote bags and cups and magnets and key chain stuff, so kind of crafting and creating different things that we can sell."

Initially, LaGrange had settled on a goal of raising $10,000 for the park and was skeptical of their ability to reach it. Before the first semester even ended, it was clear they could shoot for more to make a bigger impact on recovery efforts.

Now, over halfway to their $25,000 goal, the students have also recently started working on writing grants to help them reach it. In addition to their goal, the Owen County Community Foundation is partnering with them and will match their donation if they meet their goal.

Amy Lanham is the media specialist at the school and wanted to help by supporting LaGrange's initiative to bring awareness to environmental issues. She said the students have also learned a lot of useful skills in the process of helping to restore the park.

"One of the most exciting things about it is it uses a lot of different skills because they've learned about marketing, they've learned about website creation, obviously learning about grant writing, which pours over into them applying for scholarships ... It taught them about sales, and then we were able to donate the items that didn't sell at the fair directly to the park, and they are selling them there," Lanham said.

LaGrange appreciates her dedication and support for the students in their steps to help the planet and raise money for McCormick's Creek.

"She already had so much responsibility that she has to take care of, and she stepped up," LaGrange said. "[She] was able to help Students for the Planet and Patriots for the Park, and she really has done a phenomenal job at propelling us forward."

In addition to the support students have received from faculty at the school, Tom Lanham and LaGrange have credited the community for part of their success so far in the project.

"Without them, there's no way that we could have done any of this. So it's really been just a community endeavor, which is really neat to see," Lanham said. "We've had a lot of different businesses that have supported us."

Tom Hohman is the president of Indiana Parks Alliance which has donated $5,000 to Patriots for the Park. They have also made sure to get the word out about how people can help this group of students' cause.

"We're not major dollar players in the recovery efforts, but [we're] trying to provide what support we can," Hohman said. "Friends of the Park usually do things that tax dollars can't do."

Hohman said from an outside perspective it has also been nice to see the effort and support that has come from the community.

"I don't live in Spencer, but it's been nice to see the support that the town of Spencer has given to the park and the recovery efforts," he said. "I can tell that the park means a lot to them."

There has been a big community effort in the two years since the tornado to help restore McCormick's Creek State Park. Whether it's through donations or volunteer work, local businesses and members of the community have stepped up in the process of restoring the park.

LaGrange said his advice for those who are hoping to get involved is that "you just have to go for it."

"I think that that's been the most rewarding thing about this whole thing is that we built it into action, and, you know, we're getting it done, and we're going to be able to see at the end of it that we did have an impact on McCormick's Creek," he said.

"Now a senior at Owen Valley, LaGrange will attend Indiana University to study environmental management in the fall and continue his efforts to remain a positive impact on the planet.

"I started Students for the Planet at my high school because I felt like kids often feel like there's nothing that they can do. The world's always going crazy, and when you're a kid, you feel like you can't do anything about that," LaGrange said. "So, you just have to kind of take life in your hands and do what you can because there's always going to be something that you can do."

"That nature preserve will never look anywhere near the same in my lifetime ... but in a couple hundred years that'll be what it wasn't before," he said. "Tornadoes are a natural occurrence. It's not like man made disturbances, it's a natural occurrence occurrence that existed far before we were impacting it. So nature looks at things in а longer term than we do."

Hohman encourages people who enjoyed the park before the tornado to keep coming back. He said watching nature recover is also a natural experience. He himself has returned to the park "It's interesting watching it. That first year, certain native bushes that bear fruit, or have flowers and fruit, are more prolific," Hohman said. "They're bearing more fruit because they're getting more sunlight... It's going to be interesting to go back there every year and watch how it differs from the year before. How it recovers."

LaGrange hopes others find what they're passionate about in giving back to the planet. He encourages young people in the community to develop their leadership by encouraging peers to join them in making a change. "Improve the world and make a difference," LaGrange said. "You always just have to go after it, you know, believe in yourself and believe in whatever it is you're fighting for, and I think that's the key to making a difference."