New pickleball and bocce courts will soon be available to Peabody residents 60 and over, and to possibly members of other communities as well, at the Peter A. Torigian Senior Center.
“We started thinking about the side of the building that was really just unused space,” Peabody Council on Aging Director Carolyn Wynn said. “And then we kind of had a rough-looking bocce ball court out there for a number of years.”
To get the project underway, the Council on Aging and the senior center applied for funding with the Community Preservation Committee, which funds projects for open space, historic preservation, recreation, and housing. They were granted $120,000 in funds for the project. The maintenance department also helped with tasks in the early phase of the project, such as clearing and setting the area up to be built on.
Wynn said that they then got a couple companies to work on the courts.
“We were able to actually complete the project a little bit ahead of schedule,” Wynn said. “It’s pretty much finished other than a few little touches, like some shading and a water bubbler.”
According to Wynn, the Rotary Club of Peabody also provided a grant to add benches and purchase pickleball and bocce equipment. The court also currently has a basketball hoop installed on the court, so that the court can be used if no one is there to play pickleball.
There are also plans to have volunteers within the area, to ensure safety.
“So outside we’ll probably have one to two volunteers, just to make sure that everyone’s OK out there, if someone falls or something like that,” Wynn said. “Because I hear those pickleball players are pretty fierce.”
Finally, to ensure that there are no major injuries on the courts, the council paid a little extra for them to be engineered to absorb more shock and reduce the risks of abrasions and joint strains.
“It’s not officially open because we’re just waiting maybe another few weeks for it to get a little bit warmer,” Wynn said. “But all I can tell you right now, is that we’re almost bombarded with people signing up.” Wynn gave a guess as to why she thinks pickleball is becoming more popular nowadays.
“Many of us grew up playing tennis, and actually, the population is aging,” Wynn said. “But we still like that competitive side, and it still gives a feeling of that, but it’s not as strenuous as tennis.”
