The 2024 Denton Black Film Festival officially kicks off Wednesday. Every year, Denton residents are treated with a festival celebrating Black culture and art, and this is the festival s 10th
Playground dedication honors 3-year-old who drowned at Jacksonville park
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A dedication ceremony was held Friday afternoon at Bruce Park in Arlington where a new playground was named in honor of Amari Harley, the 3-year-old who drowned in 2017 after falling into an unsecured septic tank at the park.
The Harley family and the city honored the toddler by holding a dedication ceremony for a new playground at Bruce Park.
“I just want to say I’m forever grateful for the work that we see at the park today,” said Amari’s mother, Jasmine Bates. “Just being able to bring his brothers and sisters out to the Amari Harley Playground. It is a bittersweet moment, but I’m just glad they have a safe place to come and enjoy where we know Amari’s spirit lives.”
The park on Arlington Road looks a lot different now, four years after 3-year-old Amari Harley fell into a septic tank and died.
There s a fence around the tank hatches, covered in steel plates with padlocks, where he fell in due to a faulty cover and drowned in sewage.
Laughing children now play on new slides, kid-friendly swings and other playground gear at what the city just designated as Amari Harley Playground, remembering his death there on Oct. 22, 2017.
Standing next to the plaque bearing the smiling face of a son who would have turned 7 on Feb. 20, Jasmine Bates thanked everyone for the love and support they gave in the past three years. Like many at Friday s unveiling, she wore a Capt. America T-shirt due to her son s love of superheroes the plaque thanking Captain Amari, forever our hero!