14-year-old Sevier County girl has big plans for her town
Jun 23, 2018, 6:25 PM | Updated: 9:33 pm
SEVIER COUNTY, Utah – Of all the ways to raise a little money on a hot summer day, you can’t go wrong with a car wash.
“Hey Bailey, thanks for coming,” said Kayla Bullard to a friend as she sprayed a car with a water hose in the parking lot of the Sigurd Town Hall.
Bullard has been looking forward to this day.
Every car she and her friends wash puts them a little closer to the goal she’s been working hard to reach.
“It’s been a lot of work,” she said with a laugh. “It’s been hours, days, weeks.”
Kayla Bullard
She’s not saving money to go on some fancy school trip.
Instead, she’s trying to help her hometown of Sigurd, in Sevier County near Richfield, to buy new playground equipment.
“I think some of it is like over 20 years old,” said Bullard as she looked at the yellow rusting metal on a jungle gym and old tractor tires kids can climb on.
Sigurd Mayor Kelly Alvey
Bullard is only 14 years old, but convinced Sigurd Town Leaders to let her start a youth council.
She’s not the President of the youth council and the idea behind it all is to get things done
“I’m really proud,” said Sigurd Mayor Kelly Alvey. “We’re so excited that they had the desire to want to do this. Lots of youth these days don’t want to do much, but our youth is awesome.”
They’re so awesome, they’re washing cars on their weekend.
$5 at a time.
“I feel like before the youth council group, we just didn’t know how to help in our community and now we do,” said Bullard.
However, replacing the old playground equipment, and installing new bathrooms at the small park at the town hall, isn’t cheap.
Bullard says it’s going to cost roughly $100,000 to do all the little things they want to do to make the park better.
“Yeah, it sounds like it’s going to take a couple of car washes,” she said with a laugh. “We’ve also done chili cook-offs and other things.”
However, extra money has never been easy in Sigurd, especially after the Georgia Pacific wall board plant closed about 5 years ago.
Mayor Alvey says the closure cost locals roughly 90 jobs for a town of only about 480.
“It’s been a little tougher,” said Mayor Alvey “We just kind of have to work together and make things happen.”
That work ethic is something Bullard believes in.
She knows it would be easier to sit around and do nothing, but then nothing would get done.
“They need help and we can help,” she said. “Either this summer or next summer, that’s our goal.”
