Natrona group celebrates community in park, focuses on the future

Over Bill Godfrey’s right shoulder, crumbling brick row houses line Penn Street, their former tenants all workers who toiled for Natrona’s storied Penn Salt Manufacturing Co.

Over his left shoulder, on Federal Street, stood an evenly spaced queue of wooden, one-story cottages built in the 1850s — where Penn Salt managers once paid for Civil War veterans and their families to live for free.

But the Natrona artist stressed the hometown he adopted some 30 years ago — and where he launched the Natrona Comes Together Association nearly 20 years ago — is not a community stuck in the past tense.

“This is about embracing history, but it’s also hoping for developing the future,” said Godfrey, 74.

The same, Godfrey said, goes for people like him leading efforts to rejuvenate the community.

“We’re finding there’s a youthful energy here,” said Godfrey, as he helped man an event Saturday at Natrona Community Park by darting from table to table to help children master myriad arts-and-crafts activities. “They want to get involved.”

“And when you bring young people in, they attract more people,” he added. “We’ve built such a great foundation, so many great projects, so many great events. … Now, we’re sort of evolving.”

Those who trekked to the park in picture-perfect autumn weather this weekend didn’t have to look far to find young people claiming the space as their own.

Rachel McKrell, 27, moved to Natrona, a neighborhood of Harrison, less than a decade ago. On Saturday, she sat in a park pavilion’s shade and helped her daughter Lilly , 2, use pink foam paper to transform a cantaloupe-sized pumpkin into a dinosaur.

“We’ve been coming to these events for years,” McKrell said. “Lilly likes to come and play at the park, and do the crafts.”

Godfrey led the drive years ago to transform a vacant River Avenue field into this 2.3-acre park and event space where teens come to toss footballs and young children romp on playgrounds that pop with splashes of bold magenta, tangerine orange and school-bus yellow.

Natrona Comes Together Association has received funding from the government, the Grable Foundation and others. But a lot of the group’s work is driven by sweat equity.

“Really, it’s been tens of thousands of volunteer hours here over the years,” he said. “There’s a collective sort of ownership.”

Increasingly, Godfrey said, that work is supported by a new, younger generation of Natrona community leaders.

Robert J. Bolt, 26, grew up in Natrona and started attending events at the colorful River Avenue park at age 8 or 9. Today, he coaches and volunteers there. So does his teenage sister.

“I grew up here,” said Bolt, as a crowd of children lined up for trick-or-treat sweets. “In the beginning, it was just a place to go, to get out of the house.”

Now, it’s more than that, he and others said.

Michale Ankney said he returned to his native Natrona recently to start giving back to the people and families that helped raise him.

Ankney’s a giver. When his mother fell ill a while back, he donated half of his liver to her.

The 20-year-old man volunteered to help Godfrey create and post videos on social media promoting the community park.

Though Ankney works at General Press Corp. on Natrona’s Allegheny Drive by day, he said the Natrona Comes Together Association is an increasingly big part of his life.

“It’s great being able to help out and spread awareness about being together, wanting to grow our community,” said Ankney, as he sported a day’s worth of stuble and a Twenty One Pilots t-shirt — with black pants and black sneakers to match. “It’s been cool helping out, giving back.”

Many who remember a pre-blighted Natrona where families lived in new homes and shopped in neighborhood storefronts call the park a sign of something new in this working-class Allegheny River town.

Though often focused on the artistic angle of his work — Godfrey said he ensured the park’s basketball courts were painted bright red and green so they looked good on Google Maps — he also views it as highly pragmatic.

“We hope it’s contagious,” Godfrey laughed. “All these events make it a great place to raise a family … someone comes in, fixes their home. Then, their neighbor does that.”

For Penny Houston — a director for the Tarentum-based group Fun and Freedom, which also coordinated Saturday’s event — the symbolism is even louder.

“In 2009, we just started collaborating, and they’ve done a wonderful job here,” said Houston, a longtime Cheswick resident who grew up in Lower Burrell, as she stood near the park’s trick-or-treat line Saturday.

“When you look at these kids playing around, it’s obvious,” she added. “It’s a positive influence here — absolutely.”