Congratulations on the Parks Foundation’s 10 years of collaboration, planning, and success! Let’s all increase our efforts to engage with our neighbors to enlist support for each succeeding initiative. Our Parks Foundation can continue to provide that extra assistance for next steps in creating and maintaining quality parks. Parks for all! – Alice Hoban
I had been a volunteer with the parks and an officer of the Friends membership group for several years. Those members & other volunteers made modest donations to support relatively small projects (sponsoring student programs, goat browsing, restoration of the cemetery at Eastmanville Farm, and Grand Lady trips). Great programs.
However, it was apparent that acquiring, developing, and maintaining additional park properties would require a larger donor base and much greater fundraising results. I was honored to be part of the park volunteers, commission members, and staff who advocated for and worked together to create our own Parks Foundation as a separate non-profit organization for those purposes.
Some of the newer properties are now Ottawa Sands, Stearns Creek, and the expansion of Rosy Mound. The progress on the Grand River Greenway and Macatawa Greenway projects has been an inspiration. The long-term planning and setting of priorities are instrumental to successful steps for preserving green space along those waterways. Kudos to Parks Commission, Parks Staff, the Parks Foundation Board and many volunteers for those successful efforts. So many sections of the Idema Explorers’ Trail and Macatawa Greenway trail have been constructed for connections between parks; a positive for healthy activities and for regional economic impact.