Jun 9, 2026
OBSERVER Photos by M.J. Stafford The ribbon cutting for Discovery Way at the Point is pictured.
After a week of hard work, Discovery Way at the Point made its debut.
Dunkirk Intermediate School students held a paper chain to serve as a ribbon as Revitalize Dunkirk’s Marybeth Muldowney cut it. The community service organization led dozens of volunteers this week in a successful effort to build out the trail, which includes youth-themed play and discovery stations.
“I just want to thank every one of you in the entire community. Boy, what a week,” Muldowney said Friday. “When the tractor trailer arrived, things started happening. You’ll be amazed.”
Muldowney said Discovery Way at the Point takes its inspiration from a similar trail at Letchworth State Park. “It’s a beautiful trail and after visiting I (thought). ‘Hey, we need that trail in Dunkirk.’”
She brought the idea to Revitalize Dunkirk and “They believed enough in it to sit through many, many, many meetings the last two years. At times the road was rocky… (but) with incredible belief, hard work, and effort, we’re standing here today.”
Kids enjoying the new play area at Discovery Way at the Point.
Representatives of Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation, which funded the engineering and planning for the trail, and KABOOM!, a company that helped build it, attended the ribbon cutting.
“I can’t say how proud I am of this community at this moment,” said Dunkirk Mayor Kate Wdowiasz, who volunteered for trail construction work Thursday and Friday. “We have some wild stories to talk about and we really made some memories,” she said.
Wdowiasz admitted initial hesitancy about the project, noting there were a “lot of moving parts.” However, “we pushed through it and all worked in cooperation.
Wdowiasz thanked Revitalize Dunkirk, KABOOM! and all community members who collaborated on the project. She said it “made my heart have that more faith in our community.”
Wdowiasz mentioned that the Dunkirk City School District, Purina, the Resource Center and Kravitz Tree Service offered volunteers for work on the trail.
Muldowney closed the ceremony by inviting the approximately 60 attendees to walk the trail. The retired DCSD teacher insisted that children lead the way.
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