ATHOL – The Open Space & Recreation Commission is seeking volunteers for an inaugural celebration of Silver Lake Park.

Athol Planning and Development Director Eric Smith said the idea for the event, “Silver Lake, Our Waters,” comes from Allan Butler, one of the newer members of the OSRC.

“This is sort of his baby, but we were thinking of an idea that would bring people to the park to kind of celebrate the park,” said Smith. “We could educate more people about the park and hopefully get more people advocating for park and any efforts to improve it moving forward.”

Smith said similar programs are envisioned for other Athol parks, possibly rotating annual events between Silver Lake and Lake Ellis.

“For now, though,” Smith continued, “we’re concentrating on Silver Lake, to start the larger effort here.” Smith said June 7, 2025 is National Trail Days, “but it’s also the state’s free fishing weekend – I think it’s the 7th and 8th, actually.”

Smith said that Butler has plans to “reach out to somebody from Mass Fish & Wildlife who can, hopefully, provide a representative there to put on fishing demonstrations. He also mentioned the idea of ‘magnet fishing.’ I guess that would be a good way to pitch the idea of fishing to kids, and it could kind of help cleanup up the lake as well.”

In addition, said Smith, it’s hoped the celebration can offer guided trail hikes.

“Obviously, there’s the main loop trail, and we also have some unofficial spur trails at this time. We could take the loop trail and offer some discussions about the nature in the park. When it comes to a discussion of nature in an urban area, we could possibly partner with the Athol Bird & Nature Club. We’ve reached out to Harvard Forest to maybe get their participation, and we hopefully get the input of the Millers River Watershed Council. We also want to reach out to the Athol schools to see if we could tie into their science programs.”

Smith added that the commission is hoping to secure several mobile food vendors for the event, possibly some local service organizations.

“It’s still eight months out,” he said, “but before you know it, it’s the holidays and winter and then spring and an event like this can sneak up on you. We wanted to be proactive to see what people from the community might be willing to offer.”

Anyone interested can contact Eric Smith at esmith@townofathol.org.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.