The Trust for Public Land in Action: 2020 C E L E B R AT I N G W HAT YO U M A D E P O S S I B L E IN CONNECTICUT AND BEYOND
Thank you for partnering with us in Connecticut! Close-to-home parks are vital to communities in today’s rapidly changing world. The coronavirus pandemic, its economic fallout, and the ongoing realities of systemic racism have created unprecedented hardships for everyone. We know that great parks and green spaces can transform communities from the ground up: they improve public health, advance economic opportunities and learning outcomes, and connect people to nature and each other. We see first-hand how well-designed parks are more than a place to play; they change people’s lives. Our new strategic plan places community at the center our powerful land-for-people work. The impact of our mission is not only the creation of great parks, public lands, trails, and green schoolyards. It’s also the strengthening of the social and civic, personal and emotional connections upon which our communities depend while addressing the most pressing problems across the country—climate, health, and equity. Over the next five years, we aim to accelerate the
transformative impact of our mission—impacting 300 communities with our work and improving the lives of 85 million people nationwide. We are rising to the challenges of this unprecedented moment to bring parks and green spaces where they’re needed most. In Connecticut, it’s been our priority to ensure children and families have easy access to a safe and welcoming place to enjoy the outdoors. Since 1986, The Trust for Public Land has protected 7,975 acres throughout the state. During this period of quarantine, parks and public land are seeing some of their highest usages in modern times, and local officials are reporting dramatic upticks in visitors. Parks are proving to be an essential part of how we cope and recover from this crisis. With your help, we’re creating parks and green schoolyards and connecting people to trails and the outdoors all across the country. With gratitude,
Walker Holmes Connecticut State Director
ELISA HALSTED
MEADOWOOD
Saving land, preserving history In the 1940s, as a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, Martin Luther King, Jr., spent two summers working in the tobacco fields in the Farmington Valley. These summers allowed King to experience church services, dances, and meals in an integrated setting. “After that summer in Connecticut, it was a bitter feeling going back to segregation,” King wrote. King was one of the thousands of summer workers from as far away as the British West Indies who traveled to the Farmington River Valley for decades following World War II. The Meadowood project covers 288 acres of rolling fields and rows of tobacco barns—the same fields and barns where young King worked during his summers in Simsbury. The Trust for Public Land has secured the first rights to acquire this landscape, but we can’t do it without your help.
We must raise $6.5 million to protect the property and create a new park that celebrates the history of this special place and can be enjoyed by the whole region. This land sits between a state forest and a 4,400acre wildlife refuge. Once Meadowood is preserved, Massacoe State Forest at Great Pond and McLean Game Refuge will be connected, creating an expansive network of new trails and access points for hiking and exploration for neighbors and visitors. A conservation easement will also protect 117 acres of prime farmland for local farmers. This land will provide a place of reflection and learning about civil rights and the history of tobacco workers, expand the local food system, and create a new place for people to connect with nature.
KESHA LAMBERT
Meadowood Simsbury, CT
M O N O P O N D S TAT E PA R K
Expanding a majestic state park At The Trust for Public Land, we’re committed to a powerful idea: we protect the places that matter to you. We help communities solve urgent issues like creating equitable green space, improving people’s health, and addressing climate change. When the local community asked us to help expand Connecticut’s Mono Pond State Park, we saw a golden opportunity to grow the tiny but mighty state park by more than 1,000 acres. This June, we successfully conveyed two parcels— totaling more than 400 acres of forestland and a 5-mile network of trails—to the State of Connecticut. This effort nearly tripled the size of Mono Pond State Park Reserve. Mono Pond State Park is nothing short of majestic. Whether you explore the park by paddling, hiking, fishing, or mountain biking, this is nature at its best. Working with Columbia and Lebanon communities, we strengthened a part of a critical greenway for both humans and
wildlife. This expansion connects visitors to one of Connecticut’s few long-distance trails, the Air Line State Park Trail, which spans over 50 miles from Portland to the Quiet Corner. The trail connects walkers, hikers, equestrians, and trail bikers with nature and each other. The state park expansion was made possible by funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and the Towns of Columbia and Lebanon. A matching grant from Sustainable CT’s Community Match Fund also helped leverage private donations. From lowland blueberry swamps to rocky foothills, this land protection effort has created a special place where residents and visitors can experience nature close at hand. The Trust for Public Land continues this effort and expects to add another 200 acres, and many more miles of trails, to the state park in the next year.
RICH FREEDA
Mono Pond State Park Columbia, CT
B R I D G E P O R T W AT E R F R O N T PAT H W AY
Reclaiming the Park City’s waterfront Public health too often is determined by zip code, a reality that is all too familiar in Connecticut. Some neighborhoods have vibrant, inviting playgrounds, lush green parks and trails, bustling businesses, and plenty of welcoming public spaces. Others don’t. Low-income communities have seen a disproportionately low share of parks and open space investment, limiting their opportunities for social connection, accelerating poor health outcomes, and putting entire neighborhoods at higher risk of rising temperatures and severe weather.
The Bridgeport Waterfront Pathway will increase active recreation opportunities, improve non-motorized transportation options, and allow residents to rediscover and reclaim their waterfront. TPL STAFF
A global pandemic, record high temperatures, and fierce storms leaving prolonged power outages in their wake are experiences shared throughout Connecticut in 2020. Unfortunately, access to public space isn’t, which exacerbates the impact of these events. A growing body of scientific research demonstrates that access to nature is essential to all aspects of our environmental, physical, mental, and social health.
In close partnership with the city, residents, and community groups, The Trust for Public Land envisions a new pathway that will skirt the city’s rivers and shorelines. The path will run through nine of Bridgeport’s 13 neighborhoods, connecting 40,000 people within a 10-minute walk to the water and to each other.
That’s why The Trust for Public Land proudly collaborates with communities to create, protect, and advance the essential, nature-rich places we all love and need. Bridgeport is home to 24 miles of waterfront, but around 70 percent of it is inaccessible to the public.
W E I R FA R M C O M M E M O R AT E D In the late 80s and early 90s, we led the effort to preserve American impressionist artist J. Alden Weir’s farm and land as Connecticut’s first National Park site. In 2020, Weir Farm National Historic Site was the second commemorative quarter released in the U.S. Mint’s America the Beautiful Quarters® Program.
Victory for public lands The Trust for Public Land does more than create parks and protect land. In partnership with The Trust for Public Land Action Fund, we create, renew, and protect public funding and support for conservation through education, ballot measures, and legislative advocacy.
$900 million annually for conservation and parks. This means stable and predictable support for big, complex, long-term land conservation projects. GAOA also provides $9.5 billion over five years to address longstanding maintenance backlogs in our national parks, forests, and other public lands.
At the federal level, this year brought a notable victory. For nearly four decades, we have led the fight for full, dedicated, and permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the budgetary lifeblood for parks and open space. Through the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA)—signed into law on August 4, 2020—LWCF is now permanently and fully funded, providing
With LWCF’s permanent authorization, we are continuing our efforts to secure $500 million in direct park funding through a coronavirus economic recovery package. Connecticut will be positioned to double public funding for conservation and parks, creating jobs and economic activity.
When the pandemic shrank life down to a six-foot radius, we turned to the outdoors to cope. Parks have always been our common ground, but during this public health emergency, they’re a lifeline—for exercising, unwinding, and connecting with those we love—even at six feet apart. And yet today 100 million people—including 28 million kids—don’t have a park within a 10-minute walk of home. The Trust for Public Land is working to change that, and we need your help. Because #ParksUniteUs, and it is on US to unite for parks. We’re on a mission, and we need support in order to: • Connect more than 3 million people to 1,000 miles of trails and greenways. • Transform hundreds of asphalt schoolyards into green community parks within a 10-minute walk of 6 million people. • Save 500 places from development, because public lands need public defenders. • Achieve 100% access to parks within a 10-minute walk of all by the year 2050.
Connecticut Advisory Board We are so grateful for our exceptional volunteer leaders! David Berkowitz, Chairperson Andrew Ashforth Susan Balloch Bill Buchanan Wesley D. Cain Mildred Carstensen Raúl de Brigard
Tom Holloway Rob Klee Penny Low Carolyn O’Brien Emma Tuzinkiewicz Harry White
Nutmeg Council Don Brownstein Andy Cavanna Peter Cooper Henry Lord George Mack Jim Millard Terrie Wood
STEVE BURNS
Thank you
for joining us as we reimagine and realize the power of land for people to create stronger communities. We couldn’t do it without you.
Join us. The Trust for Public Land creates parks and protects land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.
tpl.org
Walker Holmes Connecticut State Director walker.holmes@tpl.org Nick Hoffman Director of Philanthropy, Connecticut nick.hoffman@tpl.org 101 Whitney Avenue, 2nd Floor New Haven, CT 06510 203.777.7367
COVER (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): NICK BENSON, LUCY SCHAEFFER, RICHARD FREEDA, RICHARD FREEDA, KESHA LAMBERT.