Volunteers give much-needed attention to Animal Land statues at Topeka's Gage Park

TOPEKA (KSNT) – Local volunteers gathered at Gage Park Sunday morning in an effort to restore the aging Animal Land playground.

Volunteers are working to clean the park's animal statues before summer arrives. For volunteer coordinator James George, this cleanup effort is nothing new. He's coordinated similar work in 2015 to save the statues from damage and vandalism.

"So, in 2015 I got together a group of volunteers, and we spent six weeks out here removing the paint, removing graffiti off the animals and re-staining and now here it is, it's nine years later and the animals need a re-staining," George said. "Fortunately, we don't have to remove paint this time, so we are hoping to get this done all in one day."

George says Animal Land has a special place in his heart and he plans to return with volunteers to complete more work on the statues as needed.

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