POCATELLO — Through a collaborative effort between NeighborWorks Pocatello and the Bonneville Neighborhood Association, the Bonneville Community Park will receive a complete renovation along with a new name to honor one of Pocatello’s oldest and most respected families.

It’s fitting that the park will be renamed Purce Park, considering the Black family with roots going back to Pocatello’s beginnings donated some of the land for it to be created.

Utilizing a $40,000 grant from Wells Fargo and a $10,000 grant from the Ifft Foundation, the Bonneville Community Park at North Seventh Avenue and East Fremont Street will receive a variety of updates that include a new playground structure, a new Americans with Disabilities Act accessible table and a fresh coat of paint on all of its benches and tables in a variety of fun colors.

Catherine McCarthy, the director of community engagement and marketing for NeighborWorks Pocatello, said the Bonneville Community Park project fit right in with her work to uplift the six core neighborhood associations in the city.

“As far as the park, it all began with what the neighborhood saw as a fairly sad playground structure over there and not a lot of care being done with that little pocket park for the neighborhood,” McCarthy said.

The Bonneville Neighborhood Association and NeighborWorks Pocatello were awarded grants totaling $50,000 to use on the park upgrades, which also include two new bocce ball courts, revamped horseshoe pits at the adjacent Pocatello Senior Activity Center and designs by local artists on the park’s tables.

Janell Kaneaster, president of the Bonneville Neighborhood Association, expressed gratitude for the efforts of Pocatello Parks and Recreation Director Anne Butler, who has been a “godsend” for her help on the project to enhance the quality of the park as well as the senior activity center.

In addition to the upgrades, the park will be renamed Purce Park after the local Black family who have called Pocatello home since the early 1900s.

“One of our projects is to get an additional bench for our park and that bench will be honoring the Purce family, John and Idaho Purce,” said Alfreda Vann, Bonneville Neighborhood Association secretary. “John and Idaho Purce were instrumental in acquiring the building that the senior activity program is currently residing in. Back in the mid- to late 1970s, when the Forest Service moved out of that building, it was just sitting there empty, and they looked at it and said, ‘You know, we could really use a community center here in our area’ and that’s how that building became the (Pocatello Senior Activity Center).”

Vann continued, “We felt that it would be important to honor the Purce family because of all the community involvement that they’ve had throughout since the early 1900s here in Pocatello. Idaho’s family, her parents, moved to Arimo and then to Pocatello in 1905. They are really early residents of this area. Her husband, John, was a serviceman who was stationed out at the military installation where the airport is now and they married (around) the mid-1940s and became very active in the community. We just felt that this was a way of honoring them along with their community involvement.”

While John was a Democrat and Idaho a Republican, the pair showcased how people from different political parties could come together and work together in unison.

The couple was also active in the Pocatello branch of the NAACP and worked tirelessly to progress their ideals of family, community, foster parenting, human rights and HIV/AIDS informational advocacy work.

The Purces also donated a portion of the land that was used to create Bonneville Community Park sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Idaho Purce was one of the co-authors of the book “The Triangle: A Slice of America” along with Mary Watkins and Dr. Kevin Marsh. Idaho and John’s son Les was the first Black mayor in the state during the 1970s in Pocatello.

The improvements to the renamed park are expected to be completed by this summer, at which point a ribbon-cutting ceremony and grand opening celebration will be held.

While John Purce passed away in 2011, Idaho Purce will turn 98 this coming August and is expected to attend the grand opening of the park bearing her family’s name.