VINCENNES — The Vincennes Parks and Recreation Board happily approved to moved forward in partnering with Knox County CASA to bring benches and awareness to the local city parks on Monday, March 19.

Denise Swink, executive director of Knox County CASA, shared with the parks board that the court-appointed volunteers currently are serving 121 children, but 69 children still remain on the wait as of the March 19 meeting.

With those children needing representation of their voices in the courtrooms, Swink said it is vital to continue outreach in the community as many ways as possible, bringing awareness to those about CASA and finding potential future volunteers.

While they have paid staff advocates through a Victims of Crimes Act (VOCA) Grant, Swink said they are still unable to help every child in Knox County that is going through the system.

After hearing a volunteer joined CASA after seeing a sponsored bench sit outside of JayC’s, Swink said she and others thought of the idea to add additional benches to local parks; a way they can “help beautify Knox County or help with any benches that might need to be in your parks… We want to partner with you in doing that.”

“I feeling like that’s the best use of our advertising funding right now,” Swink said.

After sharing how the CASA bench at JayC’s came to be with partnering with local companies such as Ewing Printing for signage, Swink said she wanted to make sure to be compliant with the parks’ guidelines for kinds of benches, signage attached and anything additional.

Vincennes Parks and Recreation Superintendent JR Field said Four Lakes Park could use benches, and also Chicago Park, especially with a bike track to be built sometime this year.

“That would look pretty good down there,” Field said, mentioning that with the new track, more kids (and parents) will be there to utilize any benches.

Hillary Personett, vice president for the parks board, mentioned the trolley stops around the city, to which Field chimed in and said Gregg Park has a trolley stop that could use a bench.

Parks president Stan Eck said despite the pause on benches at Gregg Park, this specific bench “would be good, especially knowing that it’s needed.” He added that while they don’t advertise for businesses on the park benches, instead, this is helping spread awareness of volunteers needed for CASA.

Field said as far as the kind of bench, if Swink is to order the same benches the parks already utilize, then it would just be a matter of getting the signage created and screwed into the bench boards.

The parks board unanimously agreed it was a great idea and to create the partnership between the parks department and CASA, getting the process of advertisement benches started.

The Vincennes Parks and Recreation had recently rescheduled its meetings for the third Monday of the month. The next meeting is set for 4:30 p.m. April 20.