(Arnolds Park)– Construction on a dormitory that will house international workers at the Arnolds Park Amusement Park is moving along. The facility is immediately west of the amusement park, at the corner of Zephyr Drive and Okoboji Grove Road. It will house up to 115 workers. Arnolds Park CEO Jon Pausley says up until now they’ve had to house workers at locations scattered around the area…
“We’ve had a couple of rental properties that we’ve been using locally nearby. We also rented a few houses, we’ve had some of them stay on their own, and we’ve utilized even this last year the Dry Dock, the old Dry Dock place was able to be used for us. So we’ve kind of cobbled together different rental opportunities in the area, but we definitely needed a place where we could have something local, something safe for them to be able to come to so they’re not riding their bikes down ’71 at night and be able to have something local at the park where it’s a short commute for them to be able to walk to work.”
Pausely says they use two different types of student visa programs, including the J1 program…
“This program is for international students that are studying abroad. So they come to us with a J1 visa, they can come for three months at a time and work with us. A lot of times they work with us during the summer and also work with other local restaurants and other places as well. So they are students that are studying abroad. They’re smart, intelligent kids from all over the world that are studying engineering and all sorts of other areas of great study. They come and work with us for the summer for experience, work on their English, and be able to just have an opportunity to work abroad. And we also utilize the H2B program, and that is a work visa program and these are usually young people who are coming to us and staying with us for a little bit longer period of time and coming with us for the opportunity to work and be able to have the opportunity to make more money with us than they would back home or just provide better opportunities to work around the globe.”
Pausley says the amusement park has been using visa students more than 15 years and summer interns for many more. He says they started with only 12 visa students the first year. That number has since grown to as many as 115.
Pausley says completion of the dormitory is scheduled for mid-may, 2023, in time for the arrival of international students for the upcoming summer.
