Trail Talk: Donations can help address multiple needs in Colorado Springs area parks
Someone you care about dies. She or he loved parks and trails. Why not have a bench placed in her favorite park or along his favorite trail as a tribute?
Thirty years ago, it was an excellent idea. The challenge today for most parks departments: There aren’t enough benches.
These departments don’t have the money needed to maintain older benches and adequate staff to do the work. El Paso County no longer offers memorial benches in its parks, having reached the point where adding benches is excessive.
While I love the benches in Fox Run Regional Park and am inspired by some of the inscriptions, unless the park is expanded, there is no need for more.
In Colorado Springs, no memorial bench program exists, but staff is “collecting resident interest.” There could be new parks plus stretches of existing trail where shaded benches would be a welcome asset. The key is to make sure the donation covers the bench, installation and ongoing maintenance.
There are other choices. City and county parks welcome community support. El Paso County has a program where residents and businesses can adopt a park. That generous support is noted at the park entrance. Donors also can provide a Nature Camp Scholarship.
El Paso County will be building a new nature center in Fox Run Regional Park, so there will be opportunities to make donations on behalf of a loved one. My mom loved trees. When she passed, we purchased several that were planted on the Wisconsin school grounds where she taught for 30 years, just a stone’s throw from the playground where her kindergarten class would run and play.
There is no shortage of needs in the region’s city and county parks. We still have padlocked sports courts and deficient playgrounds. Perhaps donations could support dog park improvements or additional bike racks for all the new e-bikes on area trails.
Honoring someone who loved and used the parks with a meaningful donation makes our parks that much better for generations to come. It just doesn’t have to be a bench.
Davies is the executive director of the Trails and Open Space Coalition.
A hiker and their dog walk a wooded trail in Fox Run Regional Park early on Saturday. Fox Run is the proposed site of a new northern nature center El Paso County wants to build.